A Christmas Carol for Scarlett O
by Cornorama
Summary: Based on Charles Dickens 'A Christmas Carol' but with a Gone With the Wind cast. COMPLETE
1. Chapter 1

**To Alica who read this more times than anyone should have had to and to Dani for just being Dani.**

**The following is a work based on Charles Dickens classic 'A Christmas Carol 'and Margaret Mitchell's 'Gone With the Wind.' I own neither.**

This story should be a chapter every few days till Christmas.

This story is also in part thanks to Barbie's 'A Christmas Carol.' My daughter made me watch it and I was pleasantly surprised to find Barbie was playing Scrooge.**..from there, an idea was born. **

Stave One

**Marley's Ghost.**

Melanie Wilkes was dead; to begin with. There was no doubt what so ever about that. Her funeral had been well attended by the old guard and the few members of new Atlanta that were not considered Yankee carpet bagging trash. And then, there was Scarlett.

During that grim pageant, she stood, alone, under the shelter of the umbrella that Pork held aloft as the heavens poured down on the black clad mourners. Scarlett herself had signed the papers for the undertaker, Ashley a shade of the man he'd once been had been useless, unable to execute such a final task. And Scarlett's signature was as good as gold these days for she had a small fortune amassed in her own name.

But none of that mattered, for Melanie Wilkes was dead and had been since the first week in October.

Scarlett knew she was dead. Of course she did. How could it be otherwise? Scarlett and Melanie had been closer than most sister were for over a decade. Certainly, they'd been closer that she was to either of her own blood sisters. Melanie was her only defender, her sole protector. She had been her only friend and, had positions been reversed, Scarlett suspected Melanie Wilkes would have been her only mourner.

Since the death of Bonnie, Scarlett had become a master of hiding her emotions from a prying world. There were those among the quality folks in Atlanta who swore that Scarlett O'Hara Butler was not very cut up by the sad event. Shaking their heads, they whispered about how she went about her usual business, going so far as to attend to business at the store on the very day of the funeral.

The day of the funeral, Scarlett felt sick to her stomach and ordered the coachman to stop at the store on some flimsy premise. In reality, she'd gone into her office and was violently ill for several minutes. But who would have believed that of Scarlett O'Hara? Who among that hateful, judgmental assembly would have considered that the thought of facing yet another funeral could bring her to her knees?

Writing about the funeral of Melanie Wilkes brings me back to the point I started from. There is no doubt that Melanie Wilkes was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate. If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet's father died before the play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts.

Change did not come easily to Scarlett. On the surface, she moved with the times, such as they were. She seemed the first to abandon the past, thinking only on tomorrow and the present day. She was often heard to remake that she would think about things tomorrow. It could have been said that Scarlett O'Hara had missed much of her adult life, always living in tomorrow, but seldom experiencing the present.

The past was dead to her, never to be mentioned or revisited.

Taking for instance, the name Kennedy over her store. Scarlett never painted out Frank Kennedy's name. The business was known as Kennedy's and Wilkes. Sometimes people new to Atlanta called Scarlett Mrs. Kennedy and sometimes Mrs. Wilkes. She was once so careful to correct those people and give them her proper name, Butler. But in these dark days, since Melly's passing and Rhett leaving her, now it was all the same to her. Kennedy, Wilkes, Butler; what did it matter what anyone called her?

Once it had given her a secret thrill, in her heart of hearts, to be mistakenly called Mrs. Wilkes. Though she kept her expression neutral when she corrected the customer, sweetly informing them that her name was in fact Mrs. Kennedy and later Butler, inside she would sound out the title in her head. It made her content to think of a world in which she was Mrs. Scarlett Wilkes. With that customer, she was usually at her best. She would smile and suggest and make that lucky man or woman feel as though there was no place better to shop then Kennedy and Wilkes.

She heard what people said about her, how could she not? She heard that she was tight-fisted, that she never stopped working from dawn till long after dark. She heard people who once, long ago, had been her friends wonder if Scarlett ever turned away from the grindstone.

That Scarlett O'Hara, people would mutter bitterly. They called her every name they could think of. She was a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous outcast! They all knew that Rhett Butler had deserted her. In this knowledge they delighted, all the while clucking their tongues saying it was a shame to see her as solitary as if she were exiled to the moon.

After nearly two months alone in the mammoth, echoing house she'd begun to harden herself against human feeling. Love! What good had love done her? Love; there was a word she could stand to go the rest of her life without hearing ever again. She'd loved Ashley with all her heart and soul. Or at least, she thought she had. How she had felt and why and when she had stopped was jumbled now in her weary mind. But in the end what had the love gotten her? Her blind, disastrous search for love made her a social pariah. But still, she could have faced everything that had come after Melly's death if only Rhett remained with her. But no, the love she'd felt for him had made no difference. She'd confessed her love to him, kneeling before him, begging to be loved.

Pathetic! She had been pathetic that night. Only at the end would she manage to reclaim some fragile semblance of dignity. Only enough so that he did not completely despise her. But he'd pitied her. It was all that was left of the great storehouse of feelings that he'd once held for her. Passion and love, desire and hatred; they were exhausted now, and all that was left was pity.

Had she known the story of Pandora and her box, even Scarlett, despite her complete ignorance concerning the classics, might have seen the parallel between hope and pity. Not that she would have cared, but still she might have seen it.

Though she was still beautiful, in the months since Bonnie's death, Scarlett had begun a metamorphosis that was very nearly complete. People talked about her behind her back, but few would have dared to speak those condemning words to her face. The cold glare that would have been their compensation froze them to the marrow, making it difficult to dole out what they considered to be richly deserved venom.

Where once she tilted her chin to look at men as if they were far more clever than they really were, now her nose remained in the air; never once acknowledging the bad opinions of the old guard. Her eyes were sometimes red in the morning from sleepless nights but she no longer cared. Faint lines were slowly etching at the corners of her eyes, a testament to how restless her lonely nights truly were. Beneath her slightly slanting green eyes, shadows had begun to increasingly appear. In any other woman, these signs of age and sadness would have detracted from her appearance. But in a face already rich with character the soft gray smudges only served to make her eyes seem ever more luminous then they'd been before.

In the last two months, she'd enclosed herself in ice. Never once did she thaw, not a single degree. Christmas, the season of love, hope and joy had never been a particularly joyous season to her, not since she'd been a young girl at Tara. In the whole of her adult years, which at present seemed to numerous to count, she'd only spent one Christmas joyfully. The Christmas that Ashley had his furlough from the army, that had been a holiday whose coming she'd anticipated with great merriment. And even that longed for holiday had ended bitterly. The night ended with her beloved, her Ashley, retiring for the night to his marital bed with his wife. No, Christmas had never held any great personal joy and these days; she barely considered the coming season.

This winter, Atlanta was cold. According to Grandpa Merewether and his cronies, the other old men who played checkers all day at Kilkenny's two doors down, it had been some years previous since it had been so cold. They insisted, as the elderly often do, that the last time it had been so cold was generally a decade before the listener was born.

At this juncture, a word before we continue. Through out time, it has become a fairly well known and widely accepted fact that when the young and old discuss any topic it should be assumed that the elder is immediately correct. Being older than most of you, gentle readers, I know this to be true.

But still, Scarlett scarcely noticed. No matter how long she sat before the fire, she was still chilled to the bone. Nothing could warm her. The wind that swept through Atlanta howled at night but she paid no heed for no wind that blew was bitterer than she. The skies opened up and drenched the town, causing numerous cases of pneumonia and a myriad of other illnesses, but Scarlett was seemingly immune. The foul weather suited her, why should the world be bright and the weather pleasant? It seemed fitting.

She was alone, unwelcome and an outcast. Nobody ever stopped her in the street with a "Dear Scarlett, how are you? When will you come to call on me?" No man or woman had spoken kindly to her that was not in her employ or likewise in trade since Melly died. Even the newcomers to Atlanta appeared to know of her; and when they saw her coming, they would turn into the doorway of a shop or direct their attentions to a window display.

They knew that an association with Scarlett would in no way benefit them if they hoped to gain entry to polite society.

Fie, what did she care, her damaged heart cried out. It was the better this way. To edge along the crowded paths of life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance, really that was best. To open herself up to people, that would only lead to disappointment; to loss and to hurt. No, better to be alone. Even the children were gone, sent straight on from Marietta to Tara.

She'd been out there a few times in the last three months, a few being two over night trips and one day trip in which the children clung to Sue and made monosyllable replies when Scarlett questioned them about their general welfare. It had been an awkward interview for all concerned and one she was not looking forward to repeating anytime soon. She'd sent them all a multitude of presents and a note saying that she wished she could spend the holiday with them but it was not possible. She made vague promises about New Year's eve but she doubted she would go.

Once upon a time, for isn't that how the best of tales must start, but then again perhaps liberties may be taken and we may say that this story begins thusly…

Once Upon a Christmas Eve, (for it was that sacred day) Scarlett O'Hara Hamilton Kennedy Butler sat busy in her office at the store. Outside the temperature was steadily dropping but despite the chill in the air, she could hear the people in the street outside calling holiday greetings to one another. The Dutch clock on the wall had just chummed three but it was nearly dusk outside already. In the evergreen decked windows of the other stores, candles flickered warmly, bright pinpricks of light in the growing darkness. Her own shades were drawn, blocking out the sights if not the sounds of the growing joviality of the crowed streets.

The door of Scarlett's office was open, her desk angled just so, with the express purpose of being able to keep her eye on the clerks that ran the store. George had been hired by Frank and still clung to the annoying habit of referring to that period as "when Mister Kennedy saw to things." A mocking chuckle always threatened to spill from her lips when George said that. When did Frank ever see to things? That he'd built the original business, she allowed, but it was already in danger of collapse when she'd married him. For the cold that felled him two weeks after their wedding, she'd always given thanks. If not for that, she would never have gotten her hands on the store's books. Had that happy event not occurred, she would never been able to do something about the outstanding debts before they buried them.

That afternoon lingered still in her mind. After settling herself next to the pot-belled stove, George, then the junior clerk, had left muttering about women and business. He'd shared Frank's view that a woman had no place in business. Little did George know that in the course of two year's time, Scarlett would not only be in business, she would be his employer.

Allowing herself a moment's reflection, she could still see him in the door, unexpected but still a welcome sight. How handsome Rhett had been that day. The time in jail hadn't touched him, at least not physically. He was shaved and well groomed, a knowing smirk on his lips. That day she'd learned something about Rhett, something that she had clung to for a time after he'd left, but now she was letting go of old dreams.

"Merry Christmas Auntie, "cried a cheerful voice. Shocked from her sojourn in the past she looked up to find Beau Wilkes standing before her desk. Looking past him, she found Ashley just behind him in the doorway. Trying hard to force a smile for her nephew, Scarlett felt her lips drawing back, her teeth bared in a imitation of a smile. "Beau," said Scarlett, struggling to compose herself "go and tell George I said you were to have one of the paper sacks for the penny candy, help yourself to whatever you like. If there isn't enough room in the first sack, take another."

Bundled up against the cold in a heavy woolen coat and a peaked cap, Beau was all aglow; his sweet heart shaped face was ruddy and handsome while his brown eyes sparkled. On his lips was a grin that was very nearly infectious. But only very nearly, failing in her attempted to smile, she gestured toward the store. "Run along Beau, let me speak to your father."

Waiting until the boy was out of earshot, she glared hotly at the man who'd once been the center of her universe. "You really shouldn't have come Ashley. I haven't the time for company, as you can see I have a lot of work to…"

"Can't your work wait? It's Christmas, or it will be in a few hours."

"It can not wait. Christmas is a bunch of nonsense, good for filling the strong box at the end of the night and nothing more. I will thank you to leave me out of it."

"Christmas, nonsense? You don't mean that," sputtered Ashley.

"I do," said Scarlett. "'Merry Christmas'! What's so merry about it I'd like to know?"

"You are one of the wealthiest women in Atlanta, probably in all of Georgia", returned Ashley in an attempt at frivolity, "you have a beautiful house, two lovely children, and a thriving business empire. And, as you said, Christmas is good for filling up the cash box. It certainly seems to be filling up your coffers. So in all, it should be a very Merry Christmas, at least for your bank account."

Scarlett, having no better answer ready on the spur of the moment, narrowed her eyes, trying to convey to him her annoyance with the course of the conversation. "Fiddle dee dee Ashley Wilkes, how you do run on." There was no warmth in her voice and he smiled a little, extending his hands in a silent entreaty.

"Don't be cross Scarlett."

"I am not cross, I am a realist", replied Scarlett tartly, "when I look at the fools who traipse in here this time of year, I cringe at their shortsightedness. What's Christmas time to any of them but a time for incurring bills without knowing precisely when one will have the money to pay them."

"Scarlett!"

"I wasn't done. It's nothing but the end of another year, a time for finding yourself a year older and nothing to show for that time. If I had my way," continued Scarlett indignantly, as she warned to the topic, "every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips should be boiled with his own collard greens, and then buried with a stake of holly through his heart."

"Scarlett, no!"

"What? It's true!" She declared emphatically.

"I wish you wouldn't say such things Scarlett, I remember a time when you loved Christmas, don't you remember when you'd come to Twelve Oaks to admire the ornaments my mother bought in Europe on her honeymoon?"

"You are remembering a girl who doesn't exist anymore, indeed if she ever really did. Ashley, you've spent all your life wearing blinders when it comes to me." She turned away, going back to her desk. "Keep Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine," she advised wearily.

"But you don't keep it at all."

"Let me leave it alone, then," said Scarlett. "Besides, I've never felt less like celebrating than I do this year. I can't find any good in the whole of the holidays and, quite honestly, I am surprised you can. What good does Christmas do anyone? At least the store profits from it, but I can't imagine the lumber yards have seen much of an increase in business just because of the holidays."

"You are right my dear. But despite the lack of coin that Christmas has put into my pockets, I enjoy it all the same. I have always thought of Christmas time, as being something beautiful, something sacred. Apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, it is a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable time. Scarlett, its the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their hearts and hands freely."

"Stop it. I want you to go, now."

"No, not until you hear me out. This time of year was Melanie's favorite. It was the one time of year when people become their best or at least allow their best natures to guide them. It's the time of year when people give a thought to their fellow man beyond what can be gotten from him. Outside Scarlett, people are smiling. Whether they known one another or not, they are blessing one another, wishing each other well."

"You are talking mighty foolish Ashley Wilkes."

"Maybe so Scarlett, but I know that Christmas has done me good, I miss Melly with all my heart, but at this time of year the best way I know to honor her is to show Beau what the world can be if given the chance. Christmas has done me good in the past and I continue to believe it will; and I say, God bless it, God Bless Christmas!"

She heard George mutter at the counter, "Well said Mr. Wilkes."

Slamming the first door between her office and the store, Scarlett pivoted on her heel. Facing Ashley, her green eyes snapped furiously and for the first time since his arrival, indeed, for the first time since Rhett Butler had left in October there was a trace of the woman who'd once been Scarlett O'Hara. "Stop it, do you hear me, just stop it", cried Scarlett. "You come in here with your talk of Christmas and love and goodwill. You're quite a powerful speaker; I wonder you don't go into politics. You could be Senator Wilkes before you know it."

"Don't be angry, dearest. Dilcey told me that you weren't going out to Tara. Why don't you come over tomorrow, have Christmas supper with us."

"Have supper at the same table as India?" She smiled sardonically, "She'd have rat poison in my soup before the first course was done."

"I promise you, India will be on her best behavior. We've already discussed the possibility that you would join us."

"Why?"

"Because I want you there," he said simply.

"People would talk," she warned.

"Then let them talk. Why shouldn't you come, you are family after all. Melanie wouldn't have wanted to see you alone in that house, not on Christmas Day."

"Don't wait on me, I won't be there."

"Why not? Just give me a reason for not coming."

"I simply don't want to, or am I not allowed to chose which invitations I accept and which I decline?" She opened the office door and, standing aside, she waited expectantly. "Good afternoon," said Scarlett pointedly.

Catching her by the hand, he took her completely unaware. Pulling her none to gently back into the office, Ashley closed the interior door so that they could speak without being observed. Looking at her with a mixture of exasperation and understanding, he shook his head. "I want nothing from you; I ask nothing of you; why can't you come to dinner, you've been avoiding me for so long now, I wanted…I hoped that we could be friends as we once were?"

"Are you mad," she hissed, opening the door back up. "We can't be in here alone with the door closed, the whole town would tear you to pieces." She lowered her voice, disappointing both clerks who were trying to feign in interest in anything except their employer. "And besides, I am not sure we ever truly were friends. At least, not in the way you thought."

"I'm sorry to find you so resolved. I miss you. I came here today to tell you so. I want you to come to supper tomorrow, and even though you say no, I will look for you and there will be a place set for you. I hope that you'll reconsider but if you don't, I wish you a Merry Christmas Scarlett."

"Good bye Ashley," said Scarlett.

"Good bye Scarlett."

He left without an angry word, but the disappointment radiated from him. He stopped at the counter to wish both men a Merry Christmas. She could hear them all discussing their plans for the following day. Hearing them all so happy made her blood boil.

"Fools the lot of them", muttered Scarlett. "None of them have the sense God gave a goat. Running on about Christmas when they should be seeing to customers."

Ashley sent Beau back to thank her for the sweets and she managed a few pleasant words for him. As she escorted him out, two new visitors came in. They were both well known to her though neither looked at all pleased to find themselves in Scarlett's store. In her claw like grip, Mrs. Meade clutched a small book and Mrs. Elsing had a small tin. Both women nodded stiffly to Scarlett.

"Scarlett," said Mrs. Meade, trying to keep the distaste from her voice, "merry Christmas."

"If you say so," she replied, wanting nothing more than for them to finish their business and leave, "ladies, what may I do for you?"

"We are here to ask you for a donation, Frank used to make one every year to the…"

"Frank has been dead for seven years," Scarlett replied. Her brow creased as she considered her previous statement. "He died seven years ago, why ask for a donation in his name now?"

"The foundation for widows and orphans is suffering this year without poor Melly," said Mrs. Meade, clutching the book tightly. "We've always tried to make some provision for the poor and destitute, those who have so little. We've tried our best to raise as much as we have in previous years, but without Captain Butler's generous contribution and Melly's tireless work on behalf of the foundation…."

"Poor and destitute? More like thieve and nere'do wells. Are there no jails?" Asked Scarlett. "No work offices? Is there nothing these poor wretches can do to help themselves? I tell you, they do nothing because people like you ladies come and take care of them, rewarding them for their lazy ways."

Mrs. Meade's hand went to her mouth as though she'd been slapped. "Scarlett Butler, really! Why, if Melly could hear you now--"

"I'd be very glad to have her hear it. She wore herself out taking care of everyone but herself, maybe if she had looked to herself for a change she would still be here now."

"Surely you must have a heart in there somewhere," pleaded Mrs. Elsing," why we choose this time of year because it is a time when people seem to recognize the plight of their fellow man. Surely, you will give something?"

"Nothing!" Scarlett replied.

Mrs. Meade pursed her lips. "If you are worried about your reputation," she commented snidely, "we could simply not mention your name. Perhaps you wish to be anonymous?"

"I wish to be left alone," said Scarlett. "Since you ask me what I wish, that is my answer. I don't care at all about Christmas and I can't afford to make people who won't help themselves merry. My taxes go to support the establishments I have mentioned, they cost enough; and those who want to help themselves, well then, they have to go there."

"Scarlett, they can't go to the work offices, those are run by Yankees. The jobs offered there are menial; degrading and low. They spit in the face of everything we fought for," Mrs. Elsing's doughy face was a mask of misery. She did not like Scarlett, but she wanted to treat her with some kindness. Melly Wilkes had thought highly of her not to mention her husband seemed to have deserted her and now it was Christmas and he still had not returned. There were few people in Atlanta who believed he ever would. "Most people would rather die then beg aid from the people who broke us."

"If they would rather die," said Scarlett, "they had better do it and fast. Let them die and decrease the surplus population."

"Scarlett, can you so callously ignore the suffering of others? How can you be Ellen O'Hara's daughter? It scarcely seems possible."

"Mother made helping others her business and in the end, her kindness killed her. The poor, they are not my business", Scarlett said, her chin high. "I have found that it's better not to interfere with other people's business. Mine own occupies me constantly. Good afternoon, ladies."

Seeing that it would be useless to continue, the ladies withdrew. Scarlett returned to the ledgers with a dour expression, muttering to herself about people being fools and deserving whatever came of it.

Meanwhile the darkness thickened. People ran about with renewed vigor, calling out to friend on foot, on horseback and in carriages. The merriment was growing as the hour of five o'clock drew closer. Finally the bells of Saint Catherine's chimed the half hour, drawing Scarlett's head up.

Drawn to the window, she moved the shade slightly, observing the bustling street outside. The brightness of the shops where holly sprigs and berries glowed in the light cast by lamps and candles made pale faces ruddy as they passed. Most people were carrying bow-bedecked packages and none of them seemed to be calculating the cost of such frivolities.

Then, from a group of men on the street corner came the traces of an old carol, one that Gerald had sang to her and her sisters when they were small, changing the words slightly, he would sing in his boisterous brogue,

"God bless you, merry little girls!

Let nothing you dismay,

For Jesus Christ our Savior,

Was born upon this day,

Scarlett slammed the shade back into place with such energy of action that both clerks moved to the front of the store; leaving the counter unattended, least either of them catch her eye thus drawing her wrath.

Five o'clock came finally. Locking the ledgers in her desk, Scarlett left the office and came out into the store. Both clerks were behind the counter, waiting for her to give them permission to leave. George, in a small show of defiance, had already put on his overcoat, his hat and gloves sat on the counter.

"You'll want all day tomorrow, I suppose?" Commented Scarlett irritably.

Richard glanced at George in mute appeal. This was a familiar conversation, in previous years, it had been a pleasant conversation, one in which Scarlett teased a little, but this year it was apparent to both men that she was in no mood for levity. "Yes Mrs. Butler, if its convenient for you ma'am."

"It's not a bit convenient," said Scarlett, "and what's more, it's not fair. If I were to dock you a dollar for it you'd think yourself abused by me, wouldn't you?"

Richard shook his head adamantly, George once again acting as spokesman spoken in a placating tone. "No Mrs. Butler, we'd never think such a thing."

"And yet", said Scarlett, "you don't think that you are taking advantage of me, when I pay a day's wages for no work."

Richard, stuttering nervously, observed that it was only once a year.

"A poor excuse for robbing me every twenty–fifth of December," said Scarlett, "but I suppose you must have the whole day otherwise the whole town would cluck their gossip loving tongues at what an ogre I am." She threw her hands up in the air. "Fine, but be here all the earlier the next morning or I'll fire you both, understand?"

The clerks promised that they would. Scarlett, still in a temper, stalked back into her office without another word. The store was closed in a twinkling, and the clerks, free at last of the formidable Scarlett Butler, went home to their respective and eager families.

Scarlett took a melancholy dinner in her office. The dinner was ordered earlier from the National hotel, as was now her usual habit. At least four nights a week she ordered dinner from the hotel's dinning room, anything to keep from eating alone in the Peachtree Street house, though she'd never admit it. Having read all the newspapers, she unlocked her desk and went over the ledgers for the store again, taking grim satisfaction in the figures for the last month of the year. The Saloon had done well; she would be once again ahead of her own projections for the end of the year. The saloon she now owned silently, leaving Philip Stark as its proprietor. She thought it an amusing joke, that she owned a saloon that people sat in discussing her latest scandals.

Finally, after exhausting every diversion, she went home to bed. After Rhett left in October, she'd moved into his room. She hated herself for it but she was longing to be closer to him, even if it was in such a small way. They were a gloomy suite of rooms, made gloomier still by holding traces of her late daughter and the man that she both longed for and despised. Or at least, tried to despise. It wasn't fair, that she who should have everything sat now in a giant echoing house, alone and unloved.

The house should have been the home to a family, children playing at hide–and–seek with each other; their laughter ringing through the rooms. As she walked through the empty rooms, her footsteps her only companions, she wondered how it had come to this? Sometimes, when she would sit on Bonnie's bed, banished to one of the unused guest rooms, she would cry, her face in her hands to smother the sound. She wondered if there was any way out of her nightmarish existence baring taking her own life. The Catholic she'd once been knew that suicide was a venial sin, one that could never be forgiven. She still had enough faith in the dogmas learned in her youth to know that to be true.

Many of the rooms were shut up now; there were no guests to occupy them, no friends coming to stay for the holidays. She occasionally lifted dust clothes to look at the furniture she once found so magnificent. Now, too late, she realized that it was a dreary house. It was furnished in heavy, uncomfortable furniture with dark hues that made the house seem even drearier, if that were at all possible. An empty, echoing house had never really been a home. Except for the few servants she kept on, nobody lived there now but Scarlett. The children were unlikely to return. During her visit to Tara, they'd seemed attached to Sue and at present, she had no desire to take them from where they were obviously happy.

After Prissy undressed her, she poured a small snifter of brandy and going to the window, she moved the heavy drapery aside.

The yard was so dark that even Scarlett, who knew its every stone, was unable to see past the great terraces. A cold winter drizzle had started in the interim adding to the gloominess she was feeling. Watching the wispy tendrils of fog that drifted lazily across the property Scarlett wondered if there might be frost before morning

Finishing the brandy, she poured another before sitting at the small vanity table moved from her room into Rhett's. Unpinning a section of her hair, she began to brush it with the hundred strokes a night Ellen once proscribed and Mammy enforced.

Now, it is a fact, that there was nothing at all particular about the mirror that sat tilted atop the vanity except that it was very large. It is also a fact, that Scarlett had seen it, night and morning, during her whole residence in the grim house as it had been one of the first pieces acquired for her new residence.

It should also be stated that Scarlett had little of what is called fancy about her. Outside of the nightmares that haunted her dreams, she possessed a very limited and under used imagination. Even long ago, when considering a future with Ashley, her imagination only carried her so far as their wedding day. Once wed, she'd given little thought as to how they would spend the duration of married life.

This cold, rational woman, who only ever let her imagination soar when it came to calculating profits and dividends, was surprised beyond telling when she glanced in the mirror to find a face not her own. A face that was eerily familiar, yet still, not her own. In fact, it was a face that she'd never viewed in life. Racking her brain frantically, she found she was unable to place where it was she knew it from.

Now it bears mentioning that Scarlett would have not had cause to consider this face in a considerably long time. One night, at the end of the war, she'd given the face a great deal of consideration, but that was eight years past. The last time she'd heard the name belonging to the face spoken aloud was even longer ago than that.

The name came to her suddenly as if borne on the growling howls of wind that now shook the house. Solange Robillard! It was Solange Robillard's face! The face that she beheld in the mirror was not angry, nor was it ferocious, but it was as her Grandmother had looked in her portrait over the parlor mantle at Tara. Her dark, thick shinning hair, piled high atop her regally held head, was curiously stirred, as if by breath or hot air. Her sharp eyes were heavy lidded. From inside the mirror's frame they watched, regarding her with mild censure. Her pale skin, devoid of all living blood, made her horrible to behold.

As Scarlett stared wide eyed and slack mouthed, the ghostly apparition faded. Later, when she would tell the tale to the few people who had earned her trust, she could not lie about how she'd felt when she'd seen another woman's face in lieu of her own reflection. She was startled, but slowly the rational Scarlett returned. Given time to consider, she began thinking after a few moments contemplation that the face in the mirror was a trick of the light or one tumbler too many of after dinner brandy. She struggled to make herself believe that either of those scenarios were the right one. But she could not; her mind would not allow her to lie to herself. The stranger in the mirror was no stranger. She'd known those proud, French features from infancy, for they were similar to Ellen's.

Reaching out, an inch at a time, she extended a hand that only trembled slightly. Hesitating for a second or two, Scarlett finally thrust out her hand to find…nothing. Nothing but the smooth, cold surface of her vanity mirror.

She laughed then, the sound as loud as a gunshot to her ears, but she could not help herself. Seeing haunts on all Hallow's eve, that at least made sense, but on Christmas Eve? Ridiculous. "Scarlett O'Hara", she murmured, laughter still evident in her voice, "grow up." Then, in a moment of high sprits, she stuck out her tongue at her own reflection before laughing again.

The sound of her laughter resonated through the room, echoing a little, but Scarlett was not a woman to be frightened by echoes. Moving to the small demi-lune table to pour herself a glass of water, she found the pitcher empty. Grumbling at Prissy's inefficiency, she left the room. Walking across the hall and down the grand staircase she found that as she descended the light from the hallway did not penetrate the gloom. The foyer below was clothed in shadows and beyond the foyer; the other rooms were as black as pitch.

The foyer was huge, meant to impress guests upon their arrival to her home. It was grandiose in scope, she could have held a reception in the foyer with room to spare; which in retrospect, was not particularly welcoming. Even when lit, the gas lamps lining the walls did nothing to banish the gloom. A street lamp wouldn't have illuminated the entry hall completely.

The longer she stared into the darkness, the more she thought she could make out shadowy, indistinct shapes in the dark foyer. Gathering her wrapper in clenched fists, not caring if any of the servants saw her, she turned and bolted back up the stairs. By the time she reached her bedroom, she was breathing hard, her harsh gasping breaths echoing in her ears. She slammed the heavy door and locked it tight. Hating herself for it, she searched the room, looking behind the drapes even, but not because she actually believed that anyone was there but, just because. After all, it was better to be safe than sorry.

No longer caring for her dignity, she got down on her hands and knees to pull up the bed covers. Nobody was under the bed; nobody was in the closet and the shadowy figure huddled against the wall was only a dressing–gown, which to her mind was hanging up in a suspicious attitude against the wall.

All that was left now was her old bedroom, on the other side of the connecting door. Her dark, uninhabited in months bedroom. A huge, dark room with dozens of hiding places from which anyone could leap and…

Sprinting to the door, she turned the lock, locking herself in. Now both the doors leading in to the room were locked, effectively double–locking her in, which was not at all her usual habit. These measures satisfied her for all of five minutes. What if someone or something was on the other side of the door, lurking in her old room? What if, after she was settled into bed, someone began to test the door to her room? If the knob turned or the door rattled in its frame, she feared her heart might stop.

Making a decision, she reached down and removed her heeled slippers. Kicking them aside, she took a poker out of the large stand in front of the grate. Wielding it, ready to strike, she unlocked the door and crept into her old rooms.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid," she muttered under her breath, chastising herself.

After searching the dressing room and under the bed up on the dais, she went back to Rhett's room. Sitting in the chair before the fire, her glance happened to rest upon a bell pull. It was for the most part unused. Originally it had been meant to summon one of the servants to wait on the room's occupants, but Rhett having Pork, never used it When Bonnie was alive, she would pull on it constantly until Rhett told the household staff to disregard it if they heard it ringing.

So it was with great astonishment and a strange, inexplicable dread, that as she looked on the bell pull began to jerk downward.. Harder and harder until she was certain it would be yanked by the wall but whatever spectral force had engaged it. From the other side of the wall, precisely where the bell pull in her old room was located, she heard a series of thuds. The tinkling of bells carried through the house until she was sure that every bell in the house was ringing.

This might have lasted half a minute, a minute at most, but it seemed an hour. The bells ceased ringing as swiftly had begun. A few minutes later, a great hammering came at her door. She opened cautiously to reveal a panting Prissy, her hair up in rag curlers, her feet bare.

"Miz Scar'lt, wha wuz dat?"

From below, a heavy clanking came; the sound was like nothing Scarlett had ever heard before. Seizing Prissy by the forearm, she shook her slightly. "Go back upstairs, wake up a few of the grooms and whoever else you can find and tell them to search the house. Someone is playing a trick on me."

"Ma'be isa hant," the girl said quivering. "Ma'be iz Miz Bon…"

"Don't be silly," she snapped, annoyed to hear her early thoughts echoed, "just go on, before anything else happens."

Hearing the pattering of the girl's quick footsteps, Scarlett remembered a story Gerald had told about ghosts in haunted castles dragging chains. What better a house to haunt then hers, she thought with a wry smile. A restless spirit would certainly feel at home in such a grim environment.

A half an hour passed with voices echoing through the house. A half an hour in which Scarlett hoped the searching men would find someone, some rational explanation for the phenomena that had occurred.

Finally Olympia, one of the upstairs maids, came to her and swore that they'd searched the house from the cellars to the attics and found no one. Further more, nothing seemed out of place. The doors were all locked, the windows bolted. There was no explanation for the bells all ringing out. With ill humor, she accepted Olympia's report and bade her a chilly good night.

"It's nonsense!" Scarlett looked around the empty room. "There's no such thing as haunts. I know that there isn't. I know it," she added as if reassuring herself.

That resolution was shattered when, without a pause, something came through the heavy door and passed into the room before her eyes. The dying embers in the fireplace burst into flame once more. Then as quickly as they rose, they fell again into a sickly rust hued glow.

The face from the mirror, it was the very same face, thought Scarlett. Her grandmother stood before her, clothed in a dress nearly a half century out of date. A length of chain some of which she carried was clasped about her middle. It was long and attached to it in the manner of charms on a bracelet were mirrors, silver backed brushes, scrolls of papers, and heavy purses wrought in steel. She was transparent so that Scarlett, observing her with unbelieving eyes, could see the dressing gown that hung on the wall behind her.

There was no such thing as ghosts. No, she still did not believe in such things. Even though she stood face to transparent face with proof to the contrary, she could not accept the evidence presented by her own eyes. There simply was no such thing and in hopes of banishing the phantom back to whatever purgatory it had risen from she spoke out trying her best to keep the helpless quaver of doubt from her voice.

"Who are you?" asked Scarlett, trying to sound caustic and cold. "What do you want with me?"

"Much!" Replied the spirit in a Savannah drawl richly accented with the cool tones of someone for whom English was an afterthought. It was the same liquid, costal drawl that she'd heard in her own mother's voice, there was no doubt about that.

"Who are you?"

"Ask me who I _was_."

"Who _were_ you then?" Demanded Scarlett, raising her voice.

"In life I was your grandmother, Solange Robillard."

Watching her hover inches above the floor, Scarlett grimaced. "Can you…can you sit down," asked Scarlett, watching in horrified fascination.

"I can."

"Why don't you then. I can't think, watching you floating as you are."

Each of them took a seat, one on each side of the now low banked fire. Scarlett sat in silence, regarding the ghost with a skeptical eye.

"You don't believe in me," observed the Ghost.

"I don't," agreed Scarlett. She slowly was overcoming her initial shock at finding herself in the presence of her long dead grandmother and her usual suspicious nature was returning.

"What evidence would you have of my reality beyond that of your senses?"

"I don't know," admitted Scarlett.

"Why do you doubt your senses?"

"Because", said Scarlett, "why should I believe them? After half of a bottle of brandy, they can't be trusted to give honest testimony. Why, even a poor meal can affect the mind as surely as it affects the belly," she said, grasping at straws. "Dinner tonight, it was awful. Really, I scarcely finished it. You may be an undigested bit of beef, maybe a blot of mustard. Maybe you've some times to the underdone carrots that I wouldn't have fed to a pig." Giving the ghost a look of appraisal, Scarlett nodded. "There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are."

Scarlett was not much in the habit of making jokes. The truth was, that she was trying to lift her own spirits as a way of distracting her own attention, and keeping down her terror. Every time the ghost spoke, it was harder to deny the reality of her presence. Her voice was such that it made Scarlett's blood run cold, freezing it in her veins

To sit staring at those fixed glazed eyes the silence in the room a living beast ready to devour her drove Scarlett out onto the road to madness. Stories had to come from somewhere after all. Was it possible that ghosts really did walk the earth, bound to haunt others because of some unfulfilled obligation?

"I don't wish to see you any longer, I wish you would go," said Scarlett, meeting the ghost's cold stare with a look of what she hoped was equal disdain.

At this, the spirit raised a frightful cry, and shook its chain with such a dismal and appalling noise that Scarlett held on tightly to her chair, fighting valiantly to keep from falling in to a swoon. A rush of cold air buffeted her face, throwing her hair into wild disarray. Gradually, the wind grew in intensity until Scarlett slid from her chair and fell to her knees, clasping her hands over her ears to drown out the spirit's cries.

"Why are you here, what do you want from me," Scarlett screamed into the wind storm raging around her.

"Now you speak to me with respect!" Replied the Ghost. "Do you believe in me or not?"

"I do," whimpered Scarlett. "I must. I never really believed that spirits walked the earth but you being here, its proof that such things happen. But why have you come to me?

"It is required of every person," the Ghost returned, "that the spirit within them should walk abroad among his or her fellow travelers on the road to eternity. If that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness!"

Again the ghost howled, shaking its chains and wringing its shadowy hands.

"The chains that you carry, what did you do to deserve them? Tell me, why do you carry them?"

"I wear the chain I forged in life," replied the Ghost. "I made it link by link, and yard by yard. Every time I neglected my children, every time I ignored those in need. Every time I let vanity and pride master me, I added another link." She extended a finger, pointing at the still kneeling Scarlett. "Perhaps some of the objects that are fettered to me, you recognize them?"

Scarlett trembled increasingly.

"Do you know the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas Eves ago. You have labored on it since. Truly it is a chain that the most miserly skinflint would be proud to call his own."

Scarlett glanced about her on the floor in the expectation of finding herself surrounded by some fifty or sixty fathoms of iron cable: but she could see nothing.

"Grandmother," she said, imploringly, "oh Grandmother, tell me more. Say something to comfort me, I beg you, please!"

"I have no comfort to give," the Ghost replied. "Comfort, Scarlett, is conveyed by ministers and other do gooders, to others who deserve it. Your spirit, like my own, never walked beyond the borders we set in our own small minds."

It was a habit with Scarlett, whenever she became thoughtful, to wring her hands. Pondering on what the Ghost had said, she did so now, but without lifting up her eyes, or getting off her knees.

"You must have been very selfish woman to still be wandering as a spirit after all these years."

The Ghost, on hearing this, set up another cry, and clanked its chain so hideously in the dead silence of the night that Scarlett was afraid Prissy or one of the other servants would come to her bedroom door.

"Selfish? You say that I was selfish? That's the pot calling the kettle black, is it not my dear? But you are correct I was selfish and cruel. At least now, albeit too late, do I see the error of my ways. So, in that, I am making progress. I was as cold as the grave in life and in death, I am denied the comfort of resting peacefully in a grave."

"But you were always well regarded Grandmother. Everyone spoke of your beauty, your straightforward manner, and the way that you…" faltered Scarlett, who now began to apply this to her self.

It held up a section of its chain, watching Scarlett with scorn as the words failed her.

"At this time of the year," the ghost said, "I suffer most. Why did I walk through crowds of fellow beings with my eyes turned away? Why did I never raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to the babe who would become the savior of mankind? There were poor homes, shanties little better than mangers to which its light would have conducted me."

Scarlett was very much dismayed to hear the ghost going on at this rate, and began to rise from her knees.

"Be still Scarlett, my time is nearly gone."

"Please, tell me then, why have you appeared to me?"

" I have sat invisible beside you many time, hoping to dissuade you from the paths you'd chose for yourself, but each time I failed."

It was not an agreeable idea. Scarlett shivered, thinking that there were indeed times when she was at her lowest that she'd felt as if she were not alone. At those times, she liked to believe her mother watched over her. But watched her from afar, in heaven, not beside her. The idea that the restless spirit of her grandmother had haunted her was unsettling even to someone with Scarlett's lack of belief in the supernatural.

"I am here tonight to warn you, that you have yet a chance, a hope of escaping my fate. A chance and hope that was of my procuring Scarlett."

"When I was younger, I wished that I could have known you, in life I mean. Mother spoke of you often, so did Mammy," said Scarlett. "

"Ellen was a saint that walked among us, but that came later after her own truth was revealed. To you I reveal this, you will be haunted," said the Ghost, "by three spirits."

Scarlett's jaw dropped. "Is that the chance and hope you mentioned Grandmother?"

"It is."

"Three spirits? I think I'd rather not," said Scarlett.

"Without their visits," continued the Ghost, ignoring Scarlett protest, "you cannot hope to shun the path I tread. Expect the first tomorrow, when the bell tolls one."

"Couldn't I take them all at once and have it over," hinted Scarlett, looking for the most expedient solution.

"Expect the second on the next night at the same hour. The third upon the next night when the last stroke of twelve has ceased to vibrate. Look to see me no more; and look that, for your own sake, you remember what has passed between us!"

The apparition walked backward from her; and at every step it took, the window raised itself a little, so that when the ghost reached it, it was wide open. It beckoned Scarlett to approach, which she did. When they were within two paces of each other, Grandmother Robillard's ghost held up its hand, warning her to come no further. Scarlett stopped.

The instant the ghost drifted through the window, Scarlett lost all semblance of obedience. Rushing to the window, she searched the night for any trace of her ghostly visitor. A bright light filled the yard, growing brighter by the instant until Scarlett had to shield her eyes or risk being blinded. Then as quickly as it started, the light disappeared, plunging the yard into darkness once more.

Scarlett closed the window, and examined the door by which the Ghost of her grandmother had entered. It was still locked, as she had locked it with her own hands, and the bolts were undisturbed. She tried to say, "Fiddle dee dee!" but stopped at the first syllable.

Taking a deep breath, she poured herself a glass of water from the pitcher Prissy had brought while the others were searching the house. Her hand trembled and most of the water spilled down the front of her dressing gown, but she paid no heed. Setting down the glass, she blew out the last of the candles. Still wearing her dressing gown, she lay down on the bed and fell asleep upon the instant her head touched the pillow.


	2. Chapter 2

**LOL, it was Thursday in my timezone too. **

**I was just being lazy**

**The First Of The Three Spirits.**

When Scarlett awoke, her room was a cavern, completely bereft of light. Reaching out, she could scarcely see her own hand in front of her as she fumbled on the bedside table for the boxes of matches she'd seen there earlier. A slow, sweeping gesture located the candle and its holder. Peering desperately into the darkness with her feline eyes, she jumped a little when the chimes of a neighboring church began to play. Momentarily foregoing her search for matches, she waited patiently for the tune to finish so she could hear the bells chime the hour.

Slowly, it rang, its deep coppery tones ringing out across the silent town. Then, to her great astonishment the heavy bell went on from six to seven, and from seven to eight, and regularly up to twelve; then stopped. Twelve! It was past two when she went to bed. The clock was wrong.. Twelve O'clock again? Impossible!

Fumbling on the surface of the table, she knocked to the ground some odds and ends that she had deposited there but she ignored it, her mind focused on finding the candle and matches. Then, triumph, her hand brushed the box of matches and she struck one with a grim smile of satisfaction. The church bells were obviously wrong; the clock on the mantle would no doubt read three, perhaps even four. Five at the latest, but midnight? Not possible.

"It isn't possible," declared Scarlett vehemently, "how could I have slept through a whole day and far into another night? Someone would have come in and woken me up." Glancing toward the door, made just visible by the sickly pale wavering light of the single candle, she wondered. Perhaps with the door locked, no one was able to come in and wake her. What if they called the police, or Ashley and Uncle Henry, or if they sent word to Rhett…

The last idea being such an alarming one, she scrambled out of bed and groped her way to the window. She was obligated to rub the frost off with the sleeve of her dressing gown before she could see anything; and even then, she could see almost nothing save the darkness and a sliver of the distant crescent moon. All she could tell was that it was still very foggy and extremely cold. There was no noise of people in the streets but from a distance, came to her the sound of a wagon rolling over the cobbled street a few blocks away.

Scarlett went to bed again, but sleep eluded her. Working the events of earlier that evening over and over in her mind, she could make nothing of it all. The more she thought, the more perplexed she was; and, the more she endeavored not to think, the more she thought.

Her grandmother's ghost bothered her beyond reason. Every time she resolved to dismiss her appearance, to accept that it was all a dream, her mind revolted and presented the same problem to be worked all through, "Was it a dream or not?"

Scarlett lay in bed, miserable and greatly confused when she remembered that the Ghost had warned her of a visitation when the bell tolled one. She resolved to lie awake until the hour sighted by the ghost of her grandmother was passed. Considering that in her current conflicted state she could no more fall asleep than fly, it was no particular hardship.

The hour passed so slowly that she at last convinced she must have sunk into a doze nearer to unconsciousness than slumber and missed the chiming bells. Then, at length a sound most welcome broke upon her listening ear.

A single golden note rang out, it hung over Atlanta for what seemed an eternity and then faded gradually.

"One O'clock," laughed Scarlett triumphantly looking around the confines of her room, "and nothing. I knew it," she crowed to herself, rearranging the pillows. "I knew there could be no such things as ghosts." Maybe she would go out to Tara for New Year's after all and when Sue's back was turned, haul the portrait of grandmother out into the yard and set it on fire. That would serve her right for popping up in her dreams, she thought with a smirk.

Just as silence settled once more over the sleeping town, a soft glow began to wash over Scarlett's room.

The light penetrated Scarlett's closed eyelids and reluctantly, she forced them open, still hoping against evidence to the contrary that she was once again dreaming. There meeting her green eyes with his own hazel eyes, she found herself face to face with the first of the expected trio of unearthly visitors.

The spirit's was a familiar face even if it was no longer as young and soft as it had been when she'd known it in life. Charles Hamilton had died long before he could lose the last vestiges of adolescence. Yes, that's it, she thought, trying to rationalize the vision, the last time I saw him, he was still a boy riding off to dreams of glory. In her dreams, was it surprising that her mind conjured him up as a cross between the callow youth she'd married and a man who'd reached maturity?

He wore a tunic of the purest gray wool and round his waist was bound a lustrous yellow sash, the sheen of which was so rich that Scarlett was drawn to it, wanting to rub the fabric between her fingers to marvel at its luxurious feel. His dress uniform was trimmed with brass buttons that glowed with an inner fire. But the strangest thing, as if the appearance of her late husband in her room wasn't strange enough, was the sword in its scabbard at his side. The sword, complete with glittering gold hilt, at his side was the same sword that hung over Wade's bed in the nursery just down the hall. How could it be at the apparition's side and in nursery at the same time?

"Charlie? Is it really you? How is it that you're here? You can't really be here. I…are you the spirit, the one whose coming was foretold to me," said Scarlett, words tumbling from her mouth in a raging torrent.

"I am."

The voice was soft and gentle. Just as it had been the day he'd asked her to marry him, just as it had been when he had promised to love her for the rest of his life. A vow that sadly, had been very easy for him to keep since the rest of his life amounted to little more than a few months.

"What are you doing here?"

"I am the Ghost of Christmas Past."

Her already strained nerves broke. "Don't be ridiculous Charlie," she snapped, "how can you be the ghost of all the Christmas's that have passed?"

"Not the ghost of all Christmas's that have passed, I am the ghost from a singular past. Your past."

Scarlett could not have explained to anybody why, but perhaps she had a special desire to see Charles Hamilton once more and so it really did not surprised her that he was here now. "If you're really Charles Hamilton, then you've seen Melly? How is she? Is she happy? Is there truly a heaven?"

"Scarlett, Melanie is not your concern presently, you should be more concerned with your own state of being. I implore you, look toward your own welfare," said the Ghost softly.

Scarlett could not help thinking that a night of unbroken rest would have been more beneficial toward her personal welfare, but she resolved to keep that thought to herself. The Spirit must have somehow heard what she was thinking, for it said immediately:

"Were you like this as a girl? I think not, otherwise I would have never fallen so completely in love with you," he said, to himself.

He put out a hand as his spoke, and clasping her gently by the arm, he spoke to her, "Come Scarlett, come walk with me awhile."

It would have been in vain for Scarlett to plead that the weather and the hour were not suitable for a leisurely amble. Her bed was warm, and she longed to return to it so she could bury her head under the pillows and pray for daylight to come. She wanted to point out to him that she was wearing only her dressing gown and a night rail and that she could not go out into the world in such scanty attire. The grasp, though gentle, was not to be resisted. She reluctantly took a step forward: but finding that the ghost was moving towards the window, she jerked away, panic in her eyes.

"I can't, please Charlie, I'll fall and…please no," she shook her head wildly, "Am I dead already, is that why you want me to come away with you?"

Taking her hand in his own, he lifted it to his lips before laying it upon his heart, "I swear to you, that you will not be harmed while I am by your side. At the touch of my hand you will travel as I do and will be unable to fall."

"I'm afraid Charlie," she admitted reluctantly.

"Scarlett O'Hara afraid," he smiled lovingly, "I never thought I would live to see the day."

She smiled faintly at his joke. "You didn't."

His eyes twinkled merrily. "Come with me, believe in me. I want only to help you, to show you something that might help you."

Her green eyes never left his as she extended her hand and allowed him to take hold of her. Together, they passed through the window and then, before she had time to cry out or change her mind, she found that they stood upon an country lane, with grand oaks extending toward the sky on either side. The city had entirely vanished. Not a vestige of it was to be seen. The darkness and the mist had vanished with it, for it was a clear, cold, winter day, with crackling frost upon the ground.

"CHARLIE!" Cried Scarlett, clasping her hands together as she looked about her. "It's Twelve Oaks, the trees, they aren't burned. They aren't dead. Everything looks just as it was before the war." She turned toward him, and a sharp dart of pain flared in her heart. "Oh, Charlie, you wouldn't know but the Yankee's, they burned it to the ground. I think it's better that you never saw it, after."

The Spirit gazed upon her mildly before taking her arm. His gentle touch stirred what little conscience she possessed. He hadn't deserved to be married, to be accepted so he could be used as nothing more than a slap at Ashley. He was a kind, well meaning young man and death had seemingly done nothing to change that.

Her eyes drifted forward again toward the gracious white house up ahead. It was an old friend, a sight she never thought to see again and it kindled in her a thousand memories, and hopes, and joys, and yes even sadness' long, long, forgotten.

"You're trembling", said the Ghost. Lifting his hand to her face, he brushed away a drop of liquid "And what's this on your cheek?"

Scarlett muttered, with an unusual catching in her voice, that it was the cold; and begged the Ghost to lead her to the house, which must be their destination.

"You know the way," teased Charles, "Do you remember how to get to the house, the short way?"

"Remember," laughed Scarlett, "I could walk it blindfolded."

"How long has it been since you've thought about Twelve Oaks?" Asked the Ghost

"I don't know, a year, maybe more. I try not to look to the past anymore."

"Then it must be strange to be here now."

"Are we truly in the past," she asked, but he said nothing more, only smiling a little.

They walked along the road, Scarlett recognizing every gate, every post and tree; until they reached the little hill just before the drive curved toward the back of the house. Tara's chimneys appeared in the distance. Joy ignited in her soul, if she ran but a quarter of a mile, she would find the Flint with its rough hewn log bridge, and on the other side of that bridge, home. Her parents would be there if it was indeed the past.

She wrenched her arm from Charles grasp but he caught her before she could take a few steps. "Scarlett don't! I know what you want to do, but it won't turn out the way you want. These are memories, nothing more. There is nothing for you in this time and this place beyond what we are here to see."

Struggling in his grasp, she pushed at him frantically. "Turn me loose, I don't believe you. Please, let me go. I just want to see them, just one more time, please…"

The sounds of hooves began to echo through the chilly, crisp air. Some riders were now trotting towards them. The party was mostly made up of boys but among them were two girls, one with dark hair and the other with blond hair the color of whipped honey. Both girls traded looks of amusement at the antics of the boys who called to each other, making teasing comments. All the boys were in high spirits and shouted to each other, until one of the riders, the dark haired young woman shouted, "Oh hush, you are all being silly!"

"It's Cathleen!" She exclaimed joyfully, temporarily forgetting her desire to get to Tara at the sight of her old friend. Cupping her hands over her mouth, she cried out, "Cathleen! Over here."

"Scarlett, these are but shadows of the things that have been", said the Ghost. "They have no consciousness of us."

Scarlett knew all of them, every one. She felt her heart thudding in her chest as she listened to herself, a much younger self of no more than fifteen, laughingly tease Tony Fontaine. Cathleen Calvert, looking as pretty as a Christmas rose in her favorite pink and white fox trimmed habit was talking to her brother, Cade. Dear sweet Cade who had wasted away before her eyes, was bringing his horse next to hers, laughing at some little comment she must have made.

She was glad to see them all again, but did that explain the wild all encompassing joy that suffused her entire being at the sight of them? When she heard them wish one another a Merry Christmas as they parted to head home, she wanted nothing more than to be visible to them so that she could wish them all the most joyous of holidays. She wanted to tell them to treasure this holiday above all that had ever come before it because there would not be many more like it for any of them.

Her heart had temporarily ruled her head, but they reversed themselves once more and she frowned. What was a Merry Christmas to Scarlett Butler? Out with Christmas! What good had it ever done to her? Even the pretty, pert Scarlett on horseback, she would soon find out that Christmas was not always going to be a time of joy and the fulfillment of wishes.

"Let's follow them," she said to Charles.

"Not everyone has gone home just yet," pointed out the Ghost.

Scarlett said she knew it. And she felt the unpleasant burn of salty tears in her eyes. "Don't let's stay here Charlie, let's go to Tara, or Atlanta. We could see Melly and Aunt Pitty, please let's just go," she begged.

He shook his head sadly and taking her arm, together they moved toward the last of the two riders. They came forward, the Ghost and Scarlett until they stood next to the two stragglers. The young man was helping the girl down as they approached.

Scarlett watched the girl, wanting nothing more than to slap some sense into her pretty head. Knowing how the scene was about to play out, she nearly wept to see her poor, stupid naive self as she used to be.

The leafless boughs of one of the towering oaks were creaking overhead. For a time they looked up, admiring the idle swaying of the bare branches. In time, the light breeze that was picking up stained the young Scarlett's cheeks a becoming shade of pink. All of these things were so familiar to Scarlett and finally she gave way to tears.

The Spirit reached out and willingly, seeking comfort wherever she could find it, she allowed him to hold her. "Scarlett, you have to look. Watch this and you will see why we are here." Turning toward the couple, she watched her younger self, her sparkling green eyes intent upon the man next to her.

"Did you know, when you married me, about how I felt about Ashley," she asked.

"I knew you'd had feelings for him, but I suppose I believed what I wanted to believe." His own smile was wistful. "I died thinking that you loved me, if that's what you were wondering."

"I'm sorry," she told him, and even as she said it, she was surprised to find that she meant it. He had been kind and wanted nothing more than to love her. There was no excuse for what she'd done.

"Oh Ashley, I love Christmas, don't you," Scarlett exclaimed in ecstasy. "Yes, yes, I know that I sound like a child, but I can't help it!"

To hear Scarlett Butler expending all of her charm on such a subject, in a lilting high spirited voice somewhere between laughing and singing would have been a shock to her business acquaintances in the city, all of whom believed that Scarlett Butler was a hard, cold woman with no soft feelings for anyone or anything.

"You don't sound at all like a child," said Ashley, smiling that lazy smile of his as they led the horses down the lane. "I love how you welcome the season with open arms, its just one of your many merits." He looked toward the house; "You're coming to the party tonight, aren't you?"

"I wouldn't miss it for anything in the world, I have a new dress. I had it made especially for tonight."

"Is it green?"

Tilting her head, she lightly slapped his arm. "Of course it is, I look wonderful in green." She looked up at him coyly from under lowered lashes, "At least I've been told that, but sometimes people say things just to be kind. Do you like me in green Ashley?"

"You look wonderful in anything Scarlett." He stopped, taking her hands in his he smiled down at her. "Stay here a minute, stay here so that I can look at you."

She preened a little, secure in her good looks and pleased with his attention.

"I wish," the presently transplanted Scarlett muttered, looking at Ashley with something akin to hatred in her eyes, "I wish you could show him this. He tried to say he never misled me, but he did. I was just fifteen. He had to have known how I felt, how could he not. But, the way I…she feels, its already too late to change those feelings. Poor girl, I wish…" she shook her head, "it doesn't matter what I wish, it's too late now to change any of this, isn't it?"

"It is, this time, it's long passed. What you and I see before us, it's a shadow of the past," said the Spirit. "What's the matter Scarlett? You look as if you're thinking something."

"Nothing", said Scarlett. "Nothing in particular. We have a son, you and I, did you know that?"

"I did, he is a wonderful boy Scarlett."

"No thanks to me. He's at Tara with his sister and…I think I should have gone out there after all. Because right now, I would give anything to go over the hill and see my parents but, I can't imagine in similar circumstance he would feel the same about seeing me." She did not cry, but tears were thick in her voice. "I always tried to take care of him Charlie, you have to believe me, but I never found a way for care for him, not as a mother should."

The Ghost smiled thoughtfully, and waved his hand: saying as he did so, "Let us see more of this Christmas."

They were inside now, inside Twelve Oaks and it was Christmas Eve night. Looking around, Scarlett recognized the little ladies parlor used by Honey and India when they entertained. The windows had slim white tapers in each of them, a tradition carried to Georgia from Virginia and England before that by the Wilkes family. A fire burned brightly in the fireplace, an occasional pine knot popping loudly.

"Why are we here? I can't remember anything important happening at the party?" Scarlett looked at the Ghost, and with an impatient shrug of her shoulders, she waited to see what was to come. A noise at the door caught her attention, wracking her brain; she tried to remember the night, nearly thirteen years past.

It opened; and a girl clad in an emerald green velvet party dress adorned with huge tiers of hand crocheted Irish lace darted into the room. Behind her, in hot pursuit, was a young man, a year or two older than the girl. Catching her around the waist, he turned her around and grinned triumphantly. "Tell me that you'll come and visit with us in January?"

Pushing him away, she laughed lightly. "Willie Burr, you are too sweet, but I don't know if I will feel like visiting anyone in January. I mean, I would be no better than a murderess."

"I don't understand, a murderess?"

"Because if I left the County and showed you any special preference, I'd break the hearts of half the boys in the County."

Charles snorted a little.

"What," asked Scarlett defensively. "I was flirting, most girls who are flirting say things like that."

"You didn't say things like that to me."

"You asked me to marry you about four hours after I started paying attention to you. You didn't give me a chance to flirt with you properly."

"I was a bit over eager," admitted Charles.

"A bit?"

He laughed softly, "You were the most beautiful girl I'd ever known. When you singled me out at the barbeque, I couldn't help myself. The war was coming, and I thought this is my chance. You seemed sad that day, as if you were in pain. A little heartsick too maybe. I wanted to protect you, to treat you as you deserved to be treated."

"If you treated me as I deserved, you would have turned tail and run. I used you to make Ashley jealous, I wanted him to feel the same sort of hurt I did. I thought that he would stop me, that he really did love me. But, I was a fool."

"No, you were young. You were never denied anything in your entire life and the first time you were, you didn't know what to do."

He understood her and in spite of that understanding, was so compassionate that she felt as if she had lost something of unknown value when she lost him. "It's strange to talk to you like this, not because of the you being a ghost thing," she added quickly, "but strange because the Charles Hamilton I knew was a tongue tied boy. Is this the real you or who you would have eventually become? You look almost the same, but you're a man now." Turning away, she watched Willie Burr try to steal a kiss from her younger self. The other Scarlett giggled and let him before pushing him away with a pout and a few harsh words.

"Scarlett…"

"No, let me say this. Not that it matters, because maybe this is all a dream, but if it isn't you deserve at least this from me. When I found out that you would never come back, I was glad. I didn't want to be a wife, not to you, not to anyone except Ashley. We never spent a Christmas as man and wife you and I, and now; here we are together and I'm glad you're here. I think that maybe we would have been happy, that we truly could have been pleasant to each other, if you had lived and I had grown up."

"Do you really in your heart believe that?" When she did not speak, he smiled sadly. "Scarlett, we could only have been happy if you had never met Rhett Butler. Do you know, he never forgot you, the girl in the green sprigged muslin dress who threw a vase and swore. He thought of you often after the barbeque, and when he saw you again at the bazaar, there was very little he could do to stop from falling in love with you."

She was about to correct him when a terrible voice in the hall cried "William Horatio Burr, get away from that girl this instant!"

"Ugh, is there anything else to see here or can we go now? I barely listened to Mrs. Burr's lecture on morals the first time, I'd rather not have to ignore it a second time."

Charles nodded, "We have another past to visit, shall we go?" He offered her his arm and with a mock curtsy, she took it.

They were at Pitty's house. She knew what Christmas it was without seeing a soul. Whirling on Charles, she began to berate him angrily. "This isn't fair, it isn't even Christmas Day, it's nearly a week after. Why should I have to see this, what else can I learn from watching me make a fool of myself?"

"I didn't pick the Christmas's that you would see, that is ordained by a higher power."

The sound of Ashley's feet on the stairs drew their attention. He came down the steps slowly, his spurs clinking, and she could hear the slap-slap of his saber against his high boots. When he came past them into the parlor, his gray eyes were somber. At the time, she could not decipher the look in his eyes, but now she knew.

She knew he was going back to more pain and suffering and death. He was a man about to leave his beloved alone in an uncertain world. His beloved Melanie, Melanie who was just like him, she was the one who understood him. Melanie, who in her letters, who in her very existence, preserved the dream world in which Ashley lost himself to retain his sanity in a world gone mad.

He was trying to smile now but his face was white and drawn, as bloodless as a corpse. And now, in the parlor, was one more thing to cause him a moment's worry, the woman he desired but did not love.

"Ashley," she begged abruptly, "may I go to the train with you?"

He shook his golden head. "Please don't. Father and the girls will be there. And anyway, I'd rather remember you saying good-by to me here than shivering at the depot. There's so much to memories."

Charles smiled a little. "He isn't wrong, I always remembered how you looked the night of the Christmas Eve Party at Twelve Oaks. I carried that image with me. Every time I read a novel in which the heroine was beautiful and vibrant, she was you. I was more than half in love with you by the day of the barbeque. I know you think that you just smiled and let me get you a desert and I was yours, but I had built you up in my mind to be the epitome of womanhood."

Before she could form a reply, her own voice interrupted. "See, Ashley! I've another present for you."

Watching them, Scarlett laughed dryly. "I've learned one thing watching this, Ashley was right, you should never cut up something pretty just for a man."

Flinching, she listened to her other self say. "Oh, Ashley, I'd--" Her face colored lightly and she continued in a rush of words.

"What were you going to say," asked Charles.

She shrugged, "Something about cutting up my heart for him, if he wanted it. Which, he didn't." Looking at the two people in front of them, one desperately clinging to the idea of honor and the other clinging to the promise of love.

"Then, there's something you can do for me, Scarlett, something that will make my mind easier when I'm away," said Ashley.

Flinching, Scarlett looked away but Charles took her hand and squeezed it reassuringly. "Scarlett, if it hadn't been for you, my sister would have died."

"But I only looked after Melly because Ashley asked me. I did it because I loved him, not because I cared what happened to Melly."

"You would have left her here to die, had he not asked?"

Her forehead furrowed as she considered his question, "No, I suppose not."

"My sister was a delicate creature, whom a breath might have withered," said the Ghost. "But, in spite of her physical frailties, she had a large heart. She loved you deeply, have you never considered that she loved you not just because you were her sister in law, but because she saw in you a heart with a great capacity to love."

"Me, love like Melly? Not possible, she loved people with her whole heart."

"You love Rhett Butler with your whole heart, don't you?"

"I don't know. I think so, but I thought the same thing about Ashley, so maybe I'm not capable of judging."

"Maybe you are so use to others judging you and your feelings that you don't bother to look inside yourself." When she looked as if she might speak, he held his hand up to silence her. "You loved your parents, you love Wade and Ella. You love Bonnie and the child you lost. In the end, you realized what my sister meant to you and you love Rhett Butler. Just because the way you show your love doesn't resemble how someone else does, it does not depreciate it."

"How do you know what's in my heart when I don't even know how I really feel about anyone or anything any more? I think that maybe this is all a dream, that you aren't here and that maybe this is my mind…" Her voice trailed off as she tried to think of why her mind would spin such an elaborate fantasy.

"Why is your mind doing all of this, to what end?"

"I don't know." She watched herself kissing Ashley Wilkes and cringed as she stood beside Melanie's brother.

"I hope that your sister never knew, she was an angel."

"She was a woman Scarlett, despite that people thought her a saint," said the Ghost, "she understood Scarlett."

"I'd like to believe that," replied Scarlett.

"It's true," said the Ghost.

At that moment, they left Pitty's house and the embracing couple behind them. Walking through Atlanta, they were now in the busy thoroughfares of a city where shadowy passengers passed and carts and coaches battled for the right of way. They were in the heart of the city where all the strife and tumult of a real city were. It was made plain enough, by the dressing of the shops that here too it was Christmas time again; but it was a clear evening, and the streets were teeming with the citizenry of the town.

"What Christmas is this?"

"A fairly recent one."

"That doesn't answer my question."

The Ghost stopped at a certain store, and asked Scarlett if she knew it.

"Know it! I own it."

They went in. At sight of an older gentleman with ginger whiskers standing behind the counter, Scarlett cried out in surprised dismay.

"Why, it's Frank. It's Frank, alive again."

Frank laid down his pen, and looked up at the clock, which pointed to the hour of five. He rubbed his beard; and called out in a nervous voice:

"Scarlett, would you come out here?"

Scarlett's former self, now grown into a self assured young woman, came briskly in, her eyes narrowed at being disturbed while in the middle of balancing the ledgers.

"I don't want to see this, whatever it is, I don't care," said Scarlett to the Ghost. " There he is, alive and well. He was good to me, he truly was. Poor Frank, he saved Tara and how did I pay him back? I made him miserable, embarrassed him in front of his friends and then I killed him."

"No more work tonight. It's Christmas Eve, Scarlett." Before she could say a word, he called out, "George, would you pull the shades and lock the door."

"We agreed on six, or so I thought," said Scarlett frowning.

"Did we," he asked, avoiding her steely green gaze, "I must have forgotten. Surely an hour won't cost us that much."

She rolled her eyes, sniffing disdainfully. "I suppose not, I'll tidy up the office."

The instant she went into the office, George came to Frank. "Mister Kennedy, I can't thank you again for the loan. With Molly being sick and the doctor bills that mounted up, I was afraid the children wouldn't have a thing for Christmas. Not that the presents should be the most important part," he added hastily, "but…"

"Don't worry George."

"I'll start paying you back next week."

"No, you won't. Consider it a bonus, I wish you and yours a Merry Christmas George."

"Mr. Kennedy, I couldn't!"

"You can and will."

"But sir, if Mrs. Kennedy…"

"Would understand what it is to need money and not know where it's coming from. The money is from my pocket so if I want to spend it, that's my business."

"I don't feel right sir, I borrowed money from you, I didn't expect not to repay it. If there is anything I can ever do for you, please consider it done."

Looking back toward the office, Frank nodded a little. "There is something George. It's not to much to suppose that Scarlett may one day have to run the store without me. I'm not a young man," Frank sighed a little, "if anything should happen to me, stay on and look after things. Scarlett is an apt businesswoman, but I would be happier knowing that she'll have someone trustworthy to rely on."

"That's why George stayed on? I always thought he just stayed because of…actually, I never considered why he stayed on after Frank passed. I know he doesn't particularly like me, but I just assumed he stayed because he couldn't be bothered to find another position."

She watched them shaking hands and then George went into the back office, presumably to wish her former self a Merry Christmas. When he left, Scarlett came out to find Frank sitting quietly by the pot bellied stove in the front of the store. It was just the two of them, George being the only full time employee they currently retained.

It was not until now, while watching her former self talk with Frank, that she came to appreciate how kind he'd been to both herself and others.

"He never told me that he gave George money for Christmas, is that really why George stayed on, because of that?"

"A small matter," said the Ghost, "to fill that man so full of gratitude."

"Small? He gave George's children a Christmas, you heard what he said, without the money Frank gave him, they would have had nothing," she said hotly.

The Spirit shrugged, "He probably only spent a few dollars. Is that so much that he deserves such praise?"

"It isn't that," said Scarlett, heated by the remark, and speaking without considering her words, "he gave George's children joy. Even though he knew I would have been annoyed and would have taken him to task for throwing away money, he gave George a huge gift. Being able to give his children Christmas, George must have been overjoyed."

She felt the Spirit's eyes on her, and stopped.

"What is the matter," asked the spirit.

"Nothing," said Scarlett.

"Something, I think," the Ghost insisted.

"No," said Scarlett. "Had I known why George stayed on I could have been able to… never mind."

Her former self turned down the lamps as she gave utterance to the wish; and Scarlett and the Ghost again stood side by side in the open air.

"My time grows short," observed the Spirit. "Quick!"

This was not addressed to Scarlett, or to any one whom she could see, but it produced an immediate effect. For again Scarlett saw herself. She was older now, a woman in the prime of life. Her face didn't have the harsh and rigid lines of the last year but it had begun to wear the signs of age and avarice. There was an eager, greedy, restless motion in the eye, which showed the knowledge that life could change in the blink of an eye.

She was not alone; Rhett sat beside her, looking both amused an annoyed. In her eyes, there were tears that sparkled in the light of the candles above the mantle.

"You don't understand," she told Rhett bitterly. "To you, what does it matter? Your life in the time to come won't change a bit. You think this is a joke, that I have no just cause to be angry. But once again, I'm trapped."

"It's only for a few months and then you can go back to worshipping your golden idol."

"What do you mean? What idol? Stop speaking in riddles, you're making my head ache."

"Commerce is the golden idol to which I refer. Never fear, the business world will be waiting for you, it isn't going anywhere. You can manage everything from your office here, you'll see, the time will fly by."

"Fly by! Spoken like a man. The time will not fly by, it will drag on till I'll feel like the walls are closing in on me."

"I'm sorry, but you'll stay in this house until you have your baby. After that you can go right back to your precious mills and store."

"You promised me happiness when you proposed marriage to me, instead I am pregnant and miserable."

He seemed to weight her statement before shrugging lightly. "This will be over soon enough, even if it will seem like forever to you, after that, maybe we won't be blessed with any more children," he said blandly.

"I certainly hope we won't have any more children," she snapped, "I didn't even want this one."

"A fact you've reminded me of repeatedly."

"Charlie," cried Scarlett, tears pooling in her green eyes. "Show me no more! Take me home. Why do you want to torture me?"

"One shadow more," exclaimed the Ghost.

"No more," cried Scarlett. "No more. I don't wish to see it. Show me no more!"

But the Ghost pinioned her in both his arms, and forced her to observe what happened next. It was still the library, but it was a different Christmas, last year's in fact. Wade and Ella were next to the tree, surreptitiously shaking various boxes and speculating on the contents of the boxes with giggle and smiles.

And now Scarlett looked on more attentively than ever, when the master of the house, holding her late daughter, sat down next to her other self. "Scarlett," said her husband, turning to her with a twisty half smile, "I saw an old friend of yours their afternoon."

"Who was it?"

"Guess!"

"How can I?"

"Not even an attempt, very well it was Mr. Wilkes."

Her mouth pursed and she reached out lightly to tweak one of Bonnie's curls. "I think Ella has one of your presents, why don't you go see." The little girl gave her a quick kiss on the lips and then hurried as quickly as her stout little legs would carry her to join her half siblings under the enormous tree.

"He asked how you were, you'll be pleased to know he sounded very concerned about your welfare. I thought you might want to know that he apparently has not forsaken you. Perhaps one day if he finds himself all alone in the world, you can finally…"

"Hush, do you hear me, don't do this, not today."

"Why not, I thought I was bringing you a gift, letting you know your true love is still pining for you." He studied her from the corner of his eye. "I hope it was just what you wanted."

He got up, leaving her alone on the couch to watch him interact with the children.

"Charlie, please," said Scarlett in a broken voice. "Can't we leave this place?"

"Not until its time."

"No more!" Scarlett exclaimed. "I can't bear it!"

"I told you these were shadows of the things that have been," said the Ghost. "That they are what they are, do not blame me!"

Tears streamed down her face. She turned upon the Ghost, drumming her fists against his chest. " Take me back home, to my home! Haunt me no longer!"

His hands seized her wrists firmly, but still with great gentleness. "Remember what I have shown you," he admonished before releasing her. Scarlett suddenly felt as if the ground had been torn away from beneath her feet. Her stomach churned as she flung out her arms, searching blindly for anything to seize onto.

Opening her eyes, she found the candle next to her bed was burning brightly. There was only a small pool of wax slowly cooling on the tabletop. She surmised that if she'd truly left her room, it could have been for no more than a matter of minutes.

A dream, it must have all been just a nightmare. Her hand was throbbing; something was clenched in her hand. Opening her fist, she felt the breath catch in her throat. There, nestled in her palm was a gleaming brass button embossed with the letters C.S.A


	3. Chapter 3

**Sorry this was late, my daughter was getting sick again. Real life so often inturupts fanfic writing and posting, don't you hate that?**

Awaking in a cold sweat, Scarlett sat up in bed. There was no need for her to be told that the church bell was again about to chime. Her lips twisted into a grimace; once again, she'd been awoken for the explicit purpose of meeting a second ghostly messenger dispatched to her through Solange Robillard's intervention.

Getting out of bed, she found the room now uncomfortably cold. Rubbing her hands together, she shoved her feet back into her bedroom slippers. By chance, she glanced down and found on the hem of her dressing gown smudges of dirt that were suspiciously similar to the red clay of Tara. A chill went down her spine, but being Scarlett, she simply tore off the dressing gown and pulled on a different one. Kicking the discarded garment under the bed, she wondered when the next spirit would appear.

The fire was low in the grate and she stirred it a little with the poker, hoping for one last burst of heat to warm her while she kept a vigilant lookout. This time she would be ready. This time she would challenge the Spirit on the moment of its appearance. The spirit would find her ready, she had no wish to be taken by surprise again.

Twice she'd been surprised by the unexpected, but not again. She was ready for a broad field of strange appearances, vowing she would not be surprised by anything from mouse to hippopotamus. Although, after the appearances of her late husband and grandmother, nothing else could surprise her very much.

Having prepared herself for almost anything, Scarlett was not prepared for nothing. The church bell struck one a.m., once again against all likelihood of such a reoccurrence, but no ghost appeared.

Stabbing at the fire angrily, she glanced around the room. Five then ten minutes, then a quarter of an hour went by; yet, nothing came. Time passed as it normally did. Watching the last embers turn to ash in the fire, Scarlett decided the ghost had five minutes more. She needed a drink. Badly. If the spirit was going to be tardy, then it would have to look around the house for her.

It was then she noticed the carvings at the bottom of the hearth. They were illuminated with a light whose source she could not identify.

Turning swiftly in her chair, she immediately found the source of the glow. From beneath the door of the adjoining room came a dim, flickering amber glow. The idea of opening the door and venturing into the unknown caused her to tremble a little with apprehension. It was one thing to sit serenely next to the fire, waiting for the approach of a ghost, it was entirely another to have to walk forward into a situation in which she would find ….well, who knew what she would find.

On the other hand, she had begun to resent being kept waiting. Who did this spirit think he or she was to keep her, Katie Scarlett O'Hara Butler, waiting? Gripping the iron poker in shaking hands, she advanced on the door to her old room, a look of grim determination firmly affixed to her face.

As she approached the door, the ghostly light that was just visible under the door began to grow in intensity. This idea of barging in on the next ghost gave her a moment's pause. Still, seeing Charlie earlier in the evening had been upsetting, but not very frightening. Her being frightened by Charles Hamilton was as likely as a cat being menaced by a goldfish.

She might have dallied, struggling with indecision for a few more minutes but a strange voice called her by name, ending her dilemma. "Come in, Scarlett Butler," called the voice. Unwillingly, she obeyed.

It was still her old room. There was no doubt about that. But it had undergone a complete transformation. The walls and ceiling were so hung with living green that it looked as if she had found her self in a fairy brier; the sort of place described only in fairy books because it could not possibly exist in reality.

For a moment, she only stared. Everywhere there was something to see and admire. Bright gleaming berries, looking more like rubies than fruit, glistened against the emerald leaves. Candles lit the room, each golden flame moving in sync with its brethren. A mighty blaze was roaring in the fireplace, scenting the room with cinnamon and the sweet tang of Georgia pine.

Before the fireplace, his hand resting casually on the mantle, stood a dark haired man that was completely unknown to her. In his easy stance, his amused, knowing gaze, there was something more than a little familiar to Scarlett, but she could not place where she might know his mannerisms.

"Come in madam," the Ghost entreated her. "Come in and know me better."

Scarlett entered timidly. The man, though a stranger to her, possessed a voice that was commanding and the way he called her madam; she felt she knew this spirit as she knew herself. Although, in light of some of the revelations of the evening, perhaps she did not know herself so well as she once believed.

"Will you not meet me eye to eye," the spirit asked. She lifted her chin, meeting his gaze with a challenging glare. Though the Spirit's black eyes were clear and seemingly kind, she did not like the way he seemed to see through her carefully cultivated surface.

Then, to her amazement, he winked insolently. Dear God, she thought, her heart racing. His eyes, she knew them somehow, and in her heart, she felt she would know them anywhere.

"Young lady, I am the Ghost of Christmas Present," said the Spirit. "Look upon me and I promise, before our time is done, you shall come to know me."

Scarlett reluctantly did so. The spirit was clothed in a somber black suit, as dark as night at the bottom of a well. His pristine white shirt gleamed like no fabric she'd ever before seen. The cravat around his neck the same rich and lustrous white as his shirt. From the folds of the cravat, a single ruby glowed, its deep facets catching the firelight. When he gestured for her to come nearer, she saw a similar stone set in the studs at his wrist.

In contrast to his rich garb, his feet were bare, and blue with cold. On his head, the spirit wore a holly wreath, set here and there with pinpricks of light. She thought they looked a little like stars, but she could not be sure. The spirit's dark, ebony hair was longer than what was currently worn; leading her to believe that he must be a spirit who had been as such for some time. His expression was genial, and she judged him to be only a decade or so older than herself. He observed her with naked amusement as if he knew what she was thinking. When he spoke again, his voice was warm but left no opening for objections or refusals.

"I should like to disperse with some unpleasantness, if you wouldn't mind," said the spirit.

"Unpleasantness?"

He gestured to the object she'd concealed in the folds of her dressing gown. "If it would make you feel better, then by all means, brain me with the item you think you're hiding. I can guarantee you that it would have no effect on me. Frankly, I fear you would only cause yourself harm were you to attempt to swing it."

Sheepishly, she leaned the poker against the wall. "You have never seen the like of me before, have you," asked the spirit.

Her red lips pursed as she considered his seemingly trivial question. "I can't say for certain," she admitted, "I'm sure that I've never met you, but I feel as if I know you, do I?"

"Perhaps you've walked forth with a member of my family," replied the phantom.

"I don't think I have," said Scarlett, biting her bottom lip. "You do seem familiar," she insisted, half to herself, "but I would be hard pressed to say from where or even from when." How could she explain that when he smiled at her, her heart had suddenly constricted painfully? "I don't believe I know any of your family, have you had many relations Spirit?"

"Those who have come before me are outnumbered only by the stars in the sky," said the Ghost.

"A tremendous family to provide for," murmured Scarlett, frustrated by his vague answer.

The Ghost of Christmas Present nodded. "And yet in comparison, no larger than the family you provide for."

"Spirit," said Scarlett passively, or rather, as passively as she could manage. Unused to shows of humility, her furrowed brow and narrowed eyes lessened the effect, "Conduct me where you will. I went forth last night on compulsion, and I saw things that have taught me a lesson that is working even now. Last night, I resisted, but now, if you will endeavor to teach me, you will find an eager student."

He gave her a half smile, amused by the false note of contrition in her voice. "How long did you rehearse that speech my dear? Did you learned it by rote or have you a little card with that printed out somewhere on your person," he queried, laughing.

Flushing at being so easily found out, she shrugged. "I thought about what I would say while I was waiting for you. By the by, you were late, although it's been difficult for me to be sure of time these last few days."

He threw back his sleek, dark head and laughed. "You are exactly as I hoped to find you, my dear," he took her hand. Looking into her green eyes, he raised her hand to his lips, "will you come with me?"

Heart racing, Scarlett nodded. Clutching the ghost's hand tightly, she took a breath. Despite having left the house once before with a spirit, she was still reluctant to venture forth.

Holly, mistletoe, red berries, ivy; all vanished instantly. So did the room and the warmth of the fire. They stood in the city streets on Christmas morning, the people passing them all contributing to the human symphony. Whether it was the calling of passerby's to friends crying out a holiday greeting or the sound of mothers calling to children to come back in before they caught their death's from the cold; all of the voices filled the air with a joyful cacophony that could not have been performed on any other day of the year but Christmas Day.

As they continued to walk, the houses became shabby. Windows were covered in boards or carefully patched with squares of oiled paper to keep out the wind. The roofs were missing shingles and there was very little in the way of holiday adornments on the fronts of the houses. The sky above them was seemingly gloomier then elsewhere in town. There was nothing very cheerful in the climate or in this section of the town, and yet surrounding all was an infectious aura of joy.

The people going forth into the cold were happy. They had next to nothing in the way of creature comforts but in their families, in their friends, and in the day that had dawned; they found joy.

Scarlett stood next to the ghost, taking in everything around her. Her analytical mind, usually occupied by numbers and profits, was processing it all and from it, she was able to draw a conclusion.

These people, people whom she might have pitied because they were poor, they would instead pity her on this day. Tonight they would sit down to meager meals, little better than their normal fare in spite of the holiday, but it would be seasoned with love and laughter. Tonight, she would sit down to a multi-course meal, alone. The few servants that had agreed to work today only did so because of their wages. They owed her no loyalty and were not fond of her. If she wished them a Merry Christmas, they would reply in kind out of a sense of obligation, nothing more.

Only a few shops were open, nearly all of them grocers. In the window of one shop stood a fantastic castle made from gingerbread, marzipan and sugar. The windows were stained glass, made from crushed candies and framed with sashes of licorice rope. The turrets, windows and doorways were festooned with garlands made from icing tinted green and dried cranberries. It was something magical to behold. Scarlett felt her mouth water at the elaborate confection. It was a fantasy come to life and she knew that as a child she would have been entranced by it. Even now, as an adult, she found it an exquisite dream come to life.

As they passed the next shop, her nose caught the tang of cloves and nutmeg. The shopkeeper and several clerks were rushing about inside, sometimes crashing into one another as they hurried to fill last minute orders. The customers were full of cheer and smiling. None of them demanded assistance or complained about waiting. When in their haste to leave a customer forgot a parcel on the counter, a clerk or another customer met them on the steps intending to catch up with them and return their mislaid purchase.

Soon people came flocking through the streets in their best clothes. Children wore fresh scrubbed faces with minimal annoyance and chattered about the small tokens left for them by Saint Nicholas and the meals that awaited them later in the day. Mothers and father's held hands with their offspring and some shared secret smiles over the heads of their boisterous broods, happy at being able to give them what little they could.

Many of them wore coats that were far from new. The elbows were threadbare or patched with a bit of the lining. The men had rough, careworn faces that were creased with worry even as they smiled and joked with their families. Scarlett thought that perhaps she'd been wrong in her earlier assessment of the people who spent what they did not have at Christmas. These men knew what the small toys and few extras for the tables cost and they would bear the cost with the usual fortitude that they met each day with.

The sight of the poor appeared to interest the Spirit very much, for he stood quietly on the street corner watching them pass by. Several times, he reached out and brushed the shoulder of a passerby. His touch seemed to affect each of its recipients in a similar manner for once or twice when there were angry words exchanged between pedestrians who accidentally jostled one another, he patted them on the back or shoulder, and good humor was restored directly

They said it was a shame to quarrel upon Christmas Day. They apologized and received apologies in return. In the way they said Merry Christmas and in their eyes and smiles you could instantly tell they meant every word. And it was a merry Christmas, truly it was. There was no Christmas before like it and indeed, there would never again be another Christmas Day like it for each holiday is special can never come but once.

"Why is it that when you touch them they stop arguing," asked Scarlett.

The spirit graced her with a smile, pleased at her interest. "Because it's the touch of goodwill. When we reach out to our fellow man, it isn't always what we give him that helps in times of need and trouble, sometimes it is the human touch that heals and replenishes."

"Does it work every day or just on this day?"

"To anyone that we reach out to each and every day, but to the poor, the unfortunate, the downtrodden most of all."

"Why to them most of all? Maybe they are poor for a reason."

"Then they need us to reach out to them, perhaps some of them do nothing to improve their situation, but by the same token there are many that try to rise above their situation only to find themselves knocked back before they can advance but a few steps forward."

"Spirit," said Scarlett, after a moment's thought, "why are we out here? I don't see anyone I know here and I think that you've perhaps brought me on an errand that does nothing to better me. I can't help it if some are poor while others are not. I was poor, I did what I had to and now…" Sensing the disapproval radiating from the spirit, Scarlett's jaw clamped shut.

"Pray continue Mrs. Butler," invited the Spirit, raising a dark brow. "You were saying?"

"Forgive me if I am wrong, but even if I had given something to Mrs. Meade and Mrs. Elsing yesterday, what good would it do these poor souls tomorrow or a week from now? People go out in the name of Christmas but then they forget about the poor and the needy for the rest of the year. You know that as well as I. They spend the rest of the year patting themselves on the back for the good works of a month, two months at the most."

He smiled. "There are some upon this earth," returned the Spirit, "who claim to know best. Those who do their deeds of passion, pride, hatred, envy, bigotry and selfishness in the name of what's right. A few lucky ones realize that their way is just that, a way. A way may be right or wrong, but it cannot be the only mold in which all other people should be cast."

"You sound as if you are speaking from experience, who were you when you were alive spirit?"

He turned from touching the shoulder of a woman bundled in a shawl. She was dirty and Scarlett half expected some of the grime from the woman to adhere itself to the spirit. "In life, I was a foolish man. I broke the hearts of those I claimed to love best because of my beliefs and expectations. I turned my back on my own flesh. I was proud and unwavering in my thinking and I never extended a hand to my fellow man unless I was sure there could be something gained from the gesture. Whether it was money or social standing, I wanted my charity recognized."

"So you haven't always been generous, you haven't always loved your fellow man?"

He laughed. "No. Just as some spirits must wander carrying the chains of their vanities, I must wander, reaching out, providing the needy with the comfort I denied others in life." He squeezed her hand, "Remember what you see here today Scarlett, remember that sometimes it's an everyday gesture of warmth and caring that changes the world, not a few dollars thrown in a tin once a year."

Scarlett promised that she would consider his words. They went on, invisible, as they had been before, into the outskirts of the town. The ghost possessed a remarkable ability. That in spite of the teeming crowds that filled the streets, he could navigate them through with ease. Some men, she thought, were capable of moving with grace through the thickest crowds, she wondered if in life the spirit had been such a man.

Upon reaching the threshold of a small, but neat house the Spirit smiled. "Do you know this house?"

Scarlett shook her head, "Should I?"

"You are the source of its support. It is the home of George Ruddy, your faithful clerk, and his family."

At the spirit's revelation, Scarlett turned to examine the house again. "This is where George lives? He has four children, how do they all fit in such a tiny house?"

"He has five children," corrected the spirit, "and the Ruddys are glad for what they have. It's very little. George does not make very much and his youngest daughter has been ill for much of her life, but for what he lacks in possessions, George makes up for in happiness. Happiness is a commodity whose price is worth beyond that of rubies."

"If you say so," replied Scarlett, sensing a veiled insult somewhere in the spirit's words.

Taking Scarlett's hand, the ghost led her forward into the house of the Ruddy's. Mrs. Ruddy, George's wife, was dressed in a carefully mended gown. In honor of the season, she had decorated it with some hand tatted lace and little ribbon rosettes. The ribbons were a mottled purple that seemed vaguely familiar. Upon reflection, she recognized the ribbon's source. They were from a lot that had arrived at the store water damaged. She'd allowed George to buy the whole reel at a significant discount.

Why hadn't she just given him the reel, she wondered, feeling a prick of conscience? She could have and never noticed the cost, she thought, admiring the brave efforts of George's wife.

Assisted by Lynn, the oldest of her daughters, George's wife began to set the table. Two of the smaller Ruddys, a boy and girl, came tearing in; chattering excitedly that they could smell the roasting chicken that was for Christmas lunch from two blocks away. They danced about the table, telling their mother about the pieces of broken peppermint candy Mr. Teller, one of the grocer's, had given them.

"Are they really so excited about being given some candy Hubert Teller couldn't sell," asked Scarlett disparagingly.

"As I told you, it's the small gestures that sometimes are the most wonderful. He gave them each a piece of candy. As he did so, he praised them for being such good children. In the years to come, they will not recall that it was broken, they will only recall the good heart of Hubert Teller and his words, praising their good conduct. In time, perhaps those kind words and gesture will in turn manifest in how the recipients as adults will treat children. Hubert Teller's little gesture may very well affect more children's lives than any one large gesture would have. "

"I see," she said, wearing an expression that told the spirit that clearly, she did not.

"Where is you father," Mrs. Ruddy asked the two younger children.

"He was just behind us," cried the two young Ruddys, "we stopped at Uncle Richard's boarding house to wish him a happy Christmas. Papa invited him to lunch."

"Is he coming?"

"No," said the little girl, finding a few raisins left from the stuffing in a bowl on the table. She offered one to her brother before popping the other into her mouth. "He has a sweetheart, he told us to wish you a Merry Christmas."

"A sweetheart," marveled Lynn, "I wonder if he'll marry her. If he does, he'll have to leave Mrs. Butler's store."

"Why," asked the little girl.

"Because Mrs. Butler is a…"

"Father's coming," cried the little boy who was at the window.

"Mrs. Butler is a what," cried Scarlett, glaring at the slender girl. "If I box her ears, do you think she'll feel it," asked Scarlett, moving a step forward.

"Oh hush," he admonished her, "what ever she was about to say, I'm sorry to tell you, it was most likely a very truthful estimation of your character."

"And a merry Christmas to you too," muttered Scarlett.

"Shush," said the spirit, pressing his finger to her lips.

Coming through the door with a cheery greeting for his family, Scarlett saw a man she barely knew. George Ruddy at home was a far different man than the clerk she employed at the store. With his cherry colored muffler and bright smile, he looked ten years younger. Ruffling the hair of the boy at the window, he kissed Lynn on the forehead and tweaked one of his wife's curls before greeting the other little girl who sat at the table. Perched on his shoulder was the youngest of the Ruddy children, Lizbeth. Lowering her to a chair, George unfastened her coat to reveal a metal framework that held her up.

There was a deep intake of breath next to the ghost when Scarlett saw the brace. "Mother of God, what happened to her?"

"That's Lizbeth. Molly, George's wife, was ill during her pregnancy and so the child was born too soon. She did not die, as the doctors warned the Ruddy's that she would, but she isn't very strong. Her back is weak and so she must wear that iron frame to help keep her upright."

Scarlett's face contorted in sympathy. "Poor baby, isn't there anything that can be done for her?"

"There is, but George can't afford it. Even with his second job…"

"Second job!" She exclaimed, temporarily forgetting Lizbeth, "George has a second job?"

"He does. He does some bookkeeping to help ends meet. You do pay him just under eight dollars a week."

"That's not such a bad salary," she replied defensively.

"He does the work of two men and has done so for the last nine years. You haven't raised his salary in years."

"He's never asked," she retorted.

"Because he is afraid you would dismiss him. Would you?"

"I don't know," she replied, crossing her arms over her chest.

"If you find an answer before our time together expires let me know, won't you?"

"How did little Lizzie behave," Mrs. Ruddy asked.

"As good as gold," said George, "and far more valuable." Seeing the little girl was speaking with her siblings, he continued in a low voice. "She thinks the strangest things you ever heard. She told me, coming home, that she hoped the people saw her in the church, because she was a cripple."

"Why would she say such a thing," asked Scarlett, forgetting George could not hear her.

"Because it might help for them to remember that on Christmas Day Jesus, who made lame beggars walk, and blind men see, was born." George glanced around the small room. "I could swear…" he murmured, looking slightly disturbed.

"What is it George, you look as if you've seen a ghost?"

"No love, just my ears playing tricks on me."

The conversation continued between husband and wife, good-natured in content and warm in tone. Scarlett found herself in the uncomfortable position of envying George and his wife. Their lives together were not easy or comfortable, but they met each challenge with good nature and best of all, they met it together.

With laughter and good natured teasing, the family set the table for their long anticipated meal. When they finally sat down, George raised a glass to his family and smiling broadly wished them, "A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears."

The family echoed the sentiment, wishing George and each other a happy day.

"God bless us every one," said Lizbeth, the last of all.

She sat next to her father, smiling up at him with infinite love and complete trust. With tears in his eyes, George reached down and lifted the little girl's hand to his lips like a courtier paying homage to his Queen. Throughout the meal he would reach down to stroke her hair or whisper some little comment to make her smile. He loved the child, she could see that. But another emotion was in his eyes when he looked at the child and Scarlett identified it as fear.

If Bonnie had survived her fall, would that same look have forever been in Rhett's eyes? Could he have ever forgotten what he'd felt when he though she'd been lost, if she'd survived? Surely, that was the fear she saw in George's eyes, fear at nearly losing his child at her birth?

"Spirit," said Scarlett, with an interest she had never felt before, "tell me, what will happen to that little girl?" Her green eyes pleaded for some assurance, "Surely she'll grow out of this, many children…"

"I see a vacant seat at the table," replied the Ghost in a hollow voice, "I see a tiny sampler, half finished, hidden away beneath the extra linens; carefully preserved. I see a man walking home across many Christmas's, alone. A house without laughter and faces without smiles. If these shadows remain unaltered, the child will die."

"No, no," pleaded Scarlett, shaking her head emphatically. "She will be fine, she has to be. George loves her so much, even I can see that plain as day, if she should die..."

"She will die," repeated the spirit firmly. "But, what of it? If she is going to die anyway, she had better do it sooner rather than later, and decrease the surplus population."

Scarlett hung her head to hear her own words quoted by the Spirit. Overcome by guilt and knowing only too well the grief of losing a child, Scarlett caught the spirit by the arm. "Isn't there something you could do to stop this from coming to pass? When I said there was a surplus population, I didn't mean this little girl. She isn't surplus, she's loved, and they need her. I meant…well, someone else."

"Are you sure you did not mean this little girl when you asked why the poor could not die and decrease a surplus that you feel is without value? Have you ever asked yourself who are you to decide what is surplus? Why should you decide what men should live and what men shall die? It may be, that in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man's child."

Scarlett had cast her eyes upon the ground at the condemnation in the spirit's words but she raised them speedily, on hearing her own name.

"To Mrs. Butler," said George, 'I'll give you Mrs. Butler, the Founder of the Feast!'

'The Founder of the Feast indeed!" Cried Mrs. Ruddy, reddening. "I wish I had her here. I'd give her a piece of my mind to feast upon, and I hope she'd choke on it."

"Dearest," said George, "remember the children, after all, it's Christmas Day."

"It must be Christmas Day," said she, "as that is the only day one drinks to the health of such an stingy, hard, unfeeling woman as Scarlett Butler. You know she is everything I say, George. Nobody knows it better than you do, poor fellow."

"It's Christmas Day," was the only comment George made.

"I'll drink to her health for your sake and the Day's sake," said Mrs. Ruddy, "not for her's. Long life to her, a merry Christmas and a happy new year. She'll be very merry and very happy, I have no doubt!"

The children drank the toast after their mother. It was the first time that there were no smiles on the faces in the room. Lizbeth drank cautiously. All she knew of Scarlett was that she was a Wicked Witch who lived in a haunted castle and drove her father too hard. The very mention of her name cast a dark shadow on the party, which was not dispelled for full five minutes.

"Do they...do they all hate me," asked Scarlett sadly.

"Have you given them any reason to love you," came the ghost's reply.

After the strained toast had passed, they were ten times merrier than before. George told them how he once saw Saint Nicholas when he was a boy, no older than Lizbeth. It was an old story, one the children enjoyed immensely, shouting out little bits of it when their father seemingly stumbled.

They were not a handsome family. They were not well dressed. The shoes of the children were colored with Indian ink to make them presentable for church. None of them wore a garment that had not been twice turned except for George. His clothes needed to be in good repair so that he could make a living. Still, looking around the table, Scarlett would have been happy to be invited to sit at their holiday table. They were happy, grateful, and pleased to be with one another.

After the meal was cleared, the children took up little things to occupy their hands. "Sing us something Lizbeth," asked Lynn, picking up some knitting.

For a second, Scarlett thought the little girl could see the two intruders in her family's home as bright blue eyes focused on the spot where she and the spirit stood.

"Can she see us," asked Scarlett nervously.

"She can not," replied the spirit, "but she may sense our presence. Children sometimes can. She…,"

"Shh," Scarlett motioned, hushing him.

The child's voice was pure; high and sweet. It trembled occasionally but Scarlett could have sat and listened to her all night.

Finishing the first song, she began one that was achingly familiar to Scarlett.

"_God rest ye merry gentlemen,  
Let nothing you dismay.  
For Jesus Christ our Savior,  
Was born on Christmas Day;  
To save us all from Satan's power,  
When we were gone astray._

_Oh tidings of comfort and joy,  
For Jesus Christ our Savior  
Was born on Christmas day._

_In Bethlehem, in Jury,  
This blessed Babe was born,  
And laid within a manger,  
Upon this blessed morn;_

_From God our heavenly Father,  
A blessed angel came.  
And unto certain shepherds,  
Brought tidings of the same,  
How that in Bethlehem was born,  
The Son of God by name_

_The shepherds at those tidings,  
Rejoiced much in mind,  
And left their flocks a feeding,  
In tempest, storm, and wind,  
And went to Bethlehem straightway,  
This blessed babe to find_

_But when to Bethlehem they came,  
They found him in a manger,  
Where oxen feed on hay;  
His mother Mary kneeling,  
Unto the Lord did pray: _

_O then with joy and cheerfulness  
Rejoice, each mother's child_

_Now to the Lord sing praises,  
All you within this place,  
Each other now embrace;  
This holy tide of Christmas,  
Doth bring redeeming grace._

_God bless all those of this house,  
And a merry Christmas too."_

With tears coursing down her face, Scarlett turned away from the spirit and began to walk to the door. He joined her, courteously taking her arm. Before they left, she could hear the little girl's voice soar, holding the last note till it rang through Scarlett's body.

By this time, it was getting dark. From the dark sky fell tiny snowflakes. They melted upon touching the ground. The weather was still too warm for it to amount to anything but Scarlett thought it made the world around them look like an illustration from a child's picture book.

Scarlett and the Spirit traveled through the town in relative silence. As they passed through the streets, children were running out into the snow to meet their cousins, uncles, and aunts. New mothers greeted new grandparents, business acquaintances wished one another a happy holiday, and a group of young negro girls, bundled up and bearing small sacks, tripped lightly off to their parent's houses to spend the night with their families before reporting back to work in the morning.

Without a word of warning from the Ghost, the world shifted around them and Scarlett found herself standing in a pleasant, tastefully furnished parlor. A tree with silver bells and red ribbons stood before a large bay window. Holly adorned the mantle and doorways. The fire in the hearth cast the only illumination in the room. Sitting on the sofa before the fire was an older woman in black who seemed familiar to Scarlett, though it took her a moment to place how she knew her.

Bonnie's funeral was the first time they'd met. Rhett's mother had embraced her, holding her close. Her clothes held the haunting scent of lemon verbena conjuring for Scarlett images of Ellen. Several times before she left, Eleanor had begged Scarlett to open up to her, if only to let out some of the grief that she felt her daughter in law was holding inside. But what could she have told the seemingly kind woman? That she had married Rhett without loving him, that she was a terrible mother and that Rhett…

A smile broke on Scarlett's face. If Rhett's mother was here then…"Are we in Charleston," asked Scarlett excitedly.

"Yes," said the Spirit

"Then Rhett's here too," exclaimed Scarlett, turning to leave the room.

"I won't go back to Atlanta," said Rhett firmly, stopping her in mid step.

He was slumped down in a chair behind them, his face still and unreadable in the flickering firelight.

Eleanor frowned at the vehement declaration. "I didn't even know you were still in town, I thought you left a few days ago to go home."

"I went to Colombia on business."

"Then you came back here, but not straight back here. You were over at the Landing till when, this morning?"

"I had things that I wanted to see to over there."

"Oh really, you weren't just avoiding me?" There was a teasing note in her voice that brought a small, reluctant smile to Rhett's lips.

"Mother, would I do that?"

"Yes, you would."

The smile was more pronounced. "You're right, I would."

"Scarlett must miss you."

And, as if by magic, the smile disappeared, just as if it had never existed. "I doubt it," he replied wearily.

"Rhett…"

"Leave it alone mother. Today was almost bearable, leave it at that."

"You didn't open the package from her, its still under the tree."

"What ever is in that box isn't anything I need."

"Have you written to her?"

"There's nothing left to say."

Looking into the crackling flames, Eleanor was silent, lost in thought. "You know my darling, you sound like your father when you talk like that. Your mind is made up and that's that. He was like that. When he came to a decision, there was no swaying him."

"Don't compare me to him."

"Why not? Don't you see the similarities? I know I do. Your father could never forgive a wrong; if he could have then maybe you would have been able to come home while he was still alive. He loved you even if he didn't always show you how much. I always wished tha-"

"We've never lied to one another before mother, just because its Christmas lets not start. Father though I was a ne'er to do that would never amount to anything. No doubt, he assumed I would die a penniless drunk in some Godforsaken gutter or doorway."

"Rhett! That simply isn't so. At the end, he wanted to see you, to make amends."

"If you say so mother, but regardless, this isn't the same."

"Isn't it? You are being just as stubborn concerning Scarlett and her supposed misdeeds as he was with you."

"Rhett," Scarlett whispered. Taking a few steps toward him, she knelt beside his chair. Reaching out, she gently laid her hand over his. In all the time she'd spent with the spirits, she'd never been inclined to try and touch someone. When she'd been a girl, she'd jump from the haymow down into the haystacks below. That feeling of falling, fast and unfettered, was as near as she could come to describing how she felt presently. Then, slowly, she began to feel something else. It wasn't the warmth conventionally found in touching another person but Scarlett could feel something.

His dark eyes closed. "I've been away too long now. If I was planning on returning to Atlanta, if I thought of it as home, I would have gone back last month or the month before that."

"It's been less than three months, that isn't so long."

"You don't know Scarlett like I do, she won't just forgive and forget. I left her mother, I told her that I didn't love her anymore and I left her begging me to stay. I saw her brought low; I pitied her. She'll hate me for that alone. She's proud, tough as nails on the outside but inside, there's something fragile, easily breakable. I broke her mother and Scarlett was never one to let bygones be bygones."

"I would though, for you," said Scarlett, resting her other hand on his knee, trying desperately to attract his attention. "If you come home, I promise things will be different."

"He can't hear you," said the spirit, "talking to him won't change anything."

With anger in her eyes, she turned to glare up at the spirit. "Don't you tell me what to do. Even if he can't hear me, maybe he can sense that I'm here and that I want him to come home." She turned her attention back to Rhett, continuing to look up at him, hoping that somehow he would sense her presence and decide to come home to her.

"Do you miss her?"

His answer came without hesitation. "Yes."

"Then go home Rhett, go home to your wife."

"It's not that simple mother, with myself and Scarlett nothing has ever been simple. I appreciate your concern, but I don't want to talk about this." His mother fell silent, allowing him his own counsel.

He looked so tired, so utterly defeated as he gazed at the fire. Once or twice, his hand twitched every so slightly under her own, almost as if he were aware of her presence.

"I love you Rhett," she whispered. "I do with my whole heart, please come back to me." Closing her eyes, Scarlett leaned forward, intending to rest her head on their intertwined hands. It was a great surprise to Scarlett, while thus engaged, to hear a hearty laugh. It was a much greater surprise to Scarlett to recognize it as her nephew's. She opened her eyes to find herself in Aunt Pitty's library, with the Spirit standing by her side.

She turned on the spirit, her face flaming with the hot blood of anger. "How dare you! How could you just take me away like that? I've gone everywhere you and your goddamned ghost friend have dragged me, but when we went to the one place I didn't want to leave, you drag me away." She ran her hand briskly through her hair, trying to rein in her raging emotions. "Damn it! I want to go back, now."

His face was a composed, bland mask. "What you want is inconsequential, we were finished in Charleston."

"Maybe you were finished, I know I wasn't," snapped Scarlett.

"At least you saw your husband, touched him even though you shouldn't have. Be happy with that."

Clutching her hands to stop them from trembling, she glared at the spirit. "Be happy I got to see him but he couldn't hear me or see me? What's there to be happy about?" The sound of her name broke into her diatribe.

"I wish Scarlett were here, you sure she said she wouldn't come," asked Pitty, her diminutive face contorted in dismay.

"She said that Christmas was something she wished to celebrate on her own terms," said Ashley unhappily. "She told me that she had no wish to celebrate this year. I tried to convince her otherwise, but she wouldn't hear of it."

"I don't see why we have to keep discussing this," India said with a frown. "If she wants to be miserable, I say let her. You all talking about it and worrying so, making yourself miserable, its what she wants."

As was stated earlier, time had been kind to Scarlett. She was still lovely and would remain as such for many years to come. The same could not be said for India Wilkes. What little beauty she'd once possessed, beauty born more of youth than fine features, was long gone. A wise man once said 'those with nothing good to say would best be served by holding their tongues.' That wise man would have taken one look at India and covered his eyes least he be tempted to make any unkind observations. And, there were many unkind observations to be made. She had a tight, often frowning mouth that seemed ready to holler, eyes that looked at people without warmth, and a disposition that the other matrons described as vinegar and lemon juice in the same body. Altogether, her appearance and manners shouted 'old maid.' She knew was likely to die alone, never knowing the love of a husband, the joy of children, or the comfort of her own home.

She knew all those things and she knew just whom she had to thank for her unmarried state, Scarlett O'Hara.

"Don't speak that way of Scarlett. She's just having a difficult time," said Henry Hamilton. "I'd hoped Ashley could convince her to join us: but I don't imagine she's coming if she isn't here by now. Scarlett's offences; whatever they may be, have already served as her own punishment. Personally, I have nothing to say against her."

"Has anyone heard any news of Captain Butler? I wonder if he'll ever return? If he didn't come here for Christmas, it doesn't seem likely that he is ever coming back." India shook her head. "There's a pair that deserve one another."

"Jealous cow," muttered Scarlett. When the ghost looked at her, she shrugged. "I don't like India, to be perfectly frank, if liking India is necessary to keep me from walking the earth for eternity then I'm sorry to say I will be keeping you company one day."

"I am sorry for her; these days I couldn't be angry with her if I tried," said Pitty. "I don't understand why you have to be so mean about her India; after all, who suffers by her refusing our invitation? Just Scarlett. She took it into her head to refuse us, and now she is most likely in that awful house all alone."

"Serves her right," commented India cattily.

Ashley's quiet, but firm, voice finally stopped India. "India, I wish Scarlett had joined us today. That you are glad she didn't, that's your business, not ours. Aunt Pitty loves her and Henry thinks well of her. I care about her just as I care about you and Honey. Please, don't ruin the holiday by speaking ill of someone the rest of us would have liked to have here."

She apologized grudgingly, for the sake of the holiday, not out of any regard for Scarlett. Ashley accepted the apology gracefully, without making it seem as if she was previously acting badly. Pitty asked India to play the piano and she complied without a murmur of protest. As she played, Ashley and Beau sang a duet of a carol Scarlett recognized as being one of the ones Melly had hummed while expecting Ashley the Christmas he'd had his furlough.

While listening to Ashley sing, Scarlett thought about all the things that Ghosts had shown her. Rhett, looking so tired and feeling sure that she would reject him were he to return home. George and his little family, well perhaps she could do something for his child. What, she'd not yet decided, but maybe she could figure out something. She should go to Tara and see Wade, talk to him a little about the future and his plans. She owed it to Charles to see to it that the boy had a decent education.

So lost in thought was she, that she failed to notice the look on the spirit's face. The Ghost was greatly pleased to find her in a reflective mood. It seemed as though Scarlett was beginning to respond to the shadows she'd been shown.

"Your friend misses you," said the Ghost.

"Yes, I suppose he does," she answered absentmindedly.

"We should be going soon."

Wishing to prolong her stay rather than return home to wait for the final spirit, Scarlett smiled prettily. Tilting her head, she pleaded, "One more hour, please? They're about to play a game."

It was a Game called Yes and No, where one player thinks of a person, place or thing and the rest must find out what the player is thinking. India volunteered to go first. The brisk fire of questioning to which she was exposed elicited from her that she was thinking of an animal, a live animal, rather a disagreeable animal, an animal that lived in Atlanta, and walked about the streets, and wasn't made a show of, and wasn't owned by anybody, and was never killed in a market, and was not a horse, or a tiger, or a dog, or a pig, or a cat (but had eyes like a hungry one), and grumbled like a bear about Christmas.

Beau was giggling furiously now and India spared her nephew a smile.

Raising his heavy white brows, Henry was able to quiet Beau's giggles with a look "What is so funny, young man?"

Beau smiled innocently, "I know what the something is."

Pitty clapped her small, chubby hands. "Well done Beau, what is it?"

"It's Auntie Scarlett," cried the boy triumphantly.

Getting to her feet, Pitty trembled like a leaf in a fall storm, but she fixed a steady gaze on India. "India, will you help me with something in the kitchen. I want to bring out some more cookies in case company drops by."

"Don't tell me that Pitty is actually going to say something to India," marveled Scarlett.

The spirit shrugged elegantly. "Shall we go and eavesdrop?"

Laughing merrily, Scarlett took the spirit's arm. "Some one once told me that eavesdroppers hear the most amusing things.

To Scarlett's disappointment, they arrived to hear just the end of he conversation, but the gist of it was easy to surmise. Pitty had told India in no uncertain terms that she would no longer stand for comments against Scarlett under a roof that was half hers.

Scarlett was touched. The old woman was shaking with what seemed to be anger. Pitty, who so often feigned fainting fits rather than face any sort of controversy head on, was defending her niece in law vigorously.

Or so it would seem.

Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I feel I should tell you that Pitty had suffered a terrible shock earlier in the day. The expression 'straw that broke the camels back' could have been coined to describe the current situation between Pitty and India. Ever since the falling out between India and Melanie over Scarlett, Pitty had slowly grown increasingly angrier at India.

She blamed India for the coolness that had clouded her relationship with Melly during the last months of her life. She blamed India for her reduced financial circumstances for when India had come to live with Pitty, Scarlett had withdrawn her financial support from Pitty's household. In all, India had been more burden than blessing in Pitty's opinion, but she'd been willing to suffer in silence rather than live all alone.

However, even Pitty Pat Hamilton had her limits and in Pitty's case, it was not a straw, but a ham that had finally set loose the animosity that had long been gathering.

In the Hamilton household, on the 25th of December, a roast leg of mutton had always been prepared. Colonel Hamilton, Pitty and Henry's father, had preferred mutton to any other main dish and so that was what was served. Always. Only during the war had Pitty deviated from tradition, serving roast chicken when the war made it difficult to acquire the mutton that was usually served.

The Wilkes family had their own preference. Coming originally from Virginia, a smoked ham was what had always been on the menu for Christmas day at Twelve Oaks. India, who was not fond of mutton, had decided to revive the tradition. She'd taken it upon herself to tell Abby, Pitty's new cook to prepare a ham for dinner. When Abby told her that Miss Hamilton had ordered a leg of mutton, India had coolly informed the girl that they would be having ham and left her alone in the kitchen before the conversation could continue further.

When the succulent smell of ham had begun to fill the house, Pitty sniffed the air, a look of horror spreading across her china doll face. She'd sped into the kitchen, as fast as her tiny feet could carry her. Hoping that she was wrong, Pitty took a kitchen rag and opened the oven to find a glistening, clove studded ham roasting where a leg of mutton should have been.

Shrieking at Abby had uncovered the culprit. When she confronted India to demand an explanation, she only received one of India's polite, but chilly looks. India told her, without so much as acknowledging her state of distress that she and Ashley preferred ham and she imagined Pitty wouldn't mind.

But Pitty did mind, enormously. She tried to convey to India how much she minded, but India simply dismissed it as Pitty making a mountain out of a molehill and excused herself.

Pitty had suffered through having India in her home. She'd put up with Ashley inviting brother Henry to dinner. She had tried to ignore Henry's repeated comments on how when father was alive the household was run smoothly and what was on the menu could be depended upon to be on the table.

But, at listening to India tear apart Scarlett for the umpteenth time, Pitty had finally lost her temper. If India had only kept still about what ever she thought she'd seen at the lumber mill, all of their lives would be different, and Pitty suspected, vastly improved.

Now, having clarified that Pitty had suddenly not turned from tabby cat to lion, we can continue.

Pitty was leaning on the table, her mouth pursed as she threw cookies on a platter. "She's had an awful year, I wish she would have joined us today. Instead, she's all alone in that house. I'm glad your brother asked her and I don't care that she said no. I'm going to invite her for New Year's Day lunch, and if she says no, well then we'll try again for Easter."

Looking as if she'd been slapped, India fired back, "If she's had a hard year, its her own fault. Maybe she deserves it after the way she's acted over the years."

"No one deserves what poor Scarlett's suffered and if that's your attitude, perhaps….well, maybe you shouldn't stay in a house with her name on the deed."

Pitty's face by this time was bright red and before India could form a reply, the old woman grabbed a plate of gingerbread men and dashed from the kitchen before India could say another word.

"I can't believe it," said Scarlett with a small smile, "did you see Pitty? That was…just something else."

"She loves you even if she's sometimes too timid to defend you to others."

Scarlett watched India tidying up the kitchen. "Thank you for bringing me here. It's good to know that maybe people really do care, at least Pitty and Ashley do. As for India, she's never liked me so I could care less what she thinks of me. I hope Pitty does toss her out on her ear, it would serve her right."

"Three steps forward and then two back my dear, and just as we were making progress," remarked the spirit.

"You can't expect me to be kind to India," Scarlett argued, "she's awful. She's always hated me and every chance she's gotten she's tried to do something to poison people against me."

"You could simply turn the other cheek."

"So she could slap that one too? No thank you."

The spirit shrugged. "As you say, and now, its time for us to take our leave. You have an appointment and as the hour grows later, it becomes near time for me to retire."

"Retire?"

It was then that Scarlett really looked at the spirit for the first time since they'd left her bedroom. The Ghost had grown older, clearly older, in appearance. Standing under the glow of a flaming gaslight she noticed that his hair was a thick, lustrous gray.

"Are all spirits lives so short?"

"My life upon this globe, is very brief," replied the Ghost. "It ends tonight."

"Tonight!" cried Scarlett.

'Tonight at midnight." He looked toward the sky, toward the church steeple. "The time is drawing near."

The chimes were ringing the three quarters past eleven at that moment.

"Please, even in this changed state from when we first met, I know you still," said Scarlett, looking intently at the Spirit's face, 'but I cannot tell from where, and if our time is drawing to a close, won't you tell me. Who are you to me? My grandmother came first, then Charles. Why would the next spirit be someone who has no interest in my reformation? Who are you?"

"I am a spirit, a shadow; the last remaining echo of a selfish man who lived and died without seeing myself as I truly was."

"That isn't an answer." His earlier words came to her and she flung them at him. "You told me, back at my house, that I was exactly as you hoped to find me. Meaning, you had expectations, you wanted to meet me. Why won't you just tell me, who are you?"

"Why is it so important now Scarlett? You haven't cared in all the time we've been together, why ask now?" Exclaimed the Ghost.

Scarlett stared back, glaring. The words choked themselves in her throat. She wanted to swear that it had been on her mind all day, but she couldn't. He was right; she'd given it little thought since they'd left the house.

"I promise you, one day, you'll know my identity," said the Spirit, looking down upon her face with an expression that held deep emotions she couldn't penetrate. "When you least expect it, suddenly something will remind you of our time together and then, you will know who I was. When that day comes, reflect on what I showed you on this day." He reached down and touched her face. "If you are with someone else, tell them this, that sometimes we are incapable of seeing the damage we inflict until it's too late to undo it."

"I don't understand, what do you mean," cried Scarlett, "please, don't leave me here without,,,"

The bell began to strike twelve.

"It's not a message for you, my dear." He smiled, and leaning forward, pressed his lips to her forehead. Closing her eyes, she reached out to touch him, but he was gone. As the last stroke ceased to vibrate, she remembered the words of her grandmother. Lifting up her eyes, she beheld a solemn Phantom, draped and hooded, coming slowly, creeping across the ground like the mist in her dreams.


	4. Chapter 4

**TO my PFL, I just can't wait.**

**Al, thank you for being you!**

**And Miriam, thank you for the review…I wanted to reply, but the review wasn't signed.**

The Phantom silently approached. As it came nearer, Scarlett backed away. This Spirit, unlike the others, seemed to bring only gloom and tragedy it its spectral wake.

It was shrouded in a heavy white garment, the shape of which was familiar to her. The hood he or she wore concealed its face and forms, leaving nothing of its inhabitant visible save one outstretched hand. This spirit seemed to bear her some ill will for it neither spoke nor moved.

When the spirit made no move to address her, Scarlett took it upon herself to address the spirit. "If Charles was the ghost of Christmas past and the spirit who just preceded you was the ghost of Christmas Present, than shall I assume I am now in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas yet to come," Scarlett asked.

The Spirit did not answer, but pointed onward.

"I see," she said, her words clipped, "you are not a spirit of many words. Are you about to show me shadows of Christmas' yet to come?" When he did not answer, she rolled her eyes. "How about I guess what else is to come, perhaps shadows of what will happen in the future? Is that so Spirit?"

The upper portion of the garment moved forward and then back, as if the Spirit had inclined its head. That was the only answer she received to her queries.

Although well used to ghostly company by this time, Scarlett found this silent shape intimidating. So much so that a chill that seemed to engulf her as the spirit moved nearer. It was the spirit's silence that disturbed her most. When it gestured for her to follow it, Scarlett summoned what was left of her failing patience.

"I am not going anywhere until you take off that hood and show yourself. Who are you to hide your appearance?" A bit of morbid interest surfaced. "Are you monstrous under that getup?" She craned her neck forward, curiosity getting the better of her. "I was a nurse during the war you know, you'd have to be pretty awful looking to shock me."

The hood moved in her direction and she knew that the spirit was looking directly at her. It filled her with a vague sense of uncertain horror, to know that behind the stark white shroud there were ghostly eyes intently fixed upon her. Had she'd angered it with her demand for it to revel itself?

Perhaps a little flattery was in order, she thought, but how does one flatter a ghost. Giving it her best effort, she clasped her hands before her, entreating the spirit to listen. "Ghost of Christmas Future," she exclaimed. "I fear you more than any specter I have seen tonight. If you are like the others, your purpose is to do me good. I am prepared to bear you company, and do it with a thankful heart, but only if you show yourself to me." When the spirit did not move, she switched tactics. "Will you not at least speak to me?"

It gave no reply. Then the specter's hand lifted again and pointed in front of them.

"Oh for crying out loud," she muttered angrily. Before the spirit could stop her, Scarlett reached out and tore the hood from the spirit.

"Mary mother of God," she gasped breathlessly.

There before her, with pale and vacant blue eyes, stood the late Frank Kennedy. Eight years late to be precise a morbid voice in her own head added. Standing there, regarding her in silence, he was so unlike the kind, warm man she'd once known. Death had granted Charles Hamilton a new dignity and strength that he'd been lacking in life. It appeared, in Frank's case, death had taken far more from him than it had given.

In the moonlight, she could see a dark smudge on his temple, one that hadn't been there in life. It confused her but then lessons learned long ago in the hospital helped her identify the mark. It was a wound. The wound left by the bullet that had killed him.

The Phantom moved away. Not knowing what else to do, Scarlett followed him, clutching the white hood in her hand. Of all the people she'd known who'd died, why in heaven's name did it have to be Frank? It was her fault that he'd died the way he had. Would he care whether she found the path to redemption? More likely, he'd rather see her condemned to walk the earth or even burn in Hell?

Looking around her, she gathered they were somewhere behind the warehouse buildings and bars near the center of town. Initially, she'd wondered why the previous spirit hadn't brought her back to her home. She couldn't understand why he'd left her in some weed filled dirt lot. But the reason was obvious now; they were behind Belle Watling's sporting house. This place had special significance in her life for Belle's was where Rhett had left Frank's body. The white Klan robes that Frank still wore gleamed in the darkness nearly twenty feet in front of her. "Frank, wait for me, please."

Hurrying to catch up, she chanced another glance up at him. The bullet hole in his temple made her ill. Had it hurt, did he suffer as he lay dying? Had he died hating her? He must have, why else did he walk next to her in silence.

Then, they were out in the light of day, the moonlit back lots replaced by the area of Five Points were local businessmen congregated. Frank stopped beside one little knot of businessmen. His hand extended, pointing to them. Scarlett advanced to listen to them

"No," said a great fat man with a monstrous chin. Ronald Barker or Baker, she could not remember his surname. "I don't know much about it, either way. I only know she's dead."

"When did she die?"

"Last night, I believe."

"I didn't know she was ill, what was the matter with her," asked a third man, taking a cigar out of a case. "I thought she'd never die."

"God knows," said the first man, who she finally identified as Roland Baxter.

Another man joined the cluster. "Oh dear, gossiping boys? I can guess about what. Have any of you heard what's to be done with her money?"

"I haven't heard," said Roland, yawning hugely. "Left it to family I imagine, perhaps some charity in the hopes of making things right with her maker. She hasn't left it to _me_. That I do know."

This jib was received with general laughter.

"It's likely to be a very cheap funeral," said a man in a grotesque purple and green waistcoat; "for upon my life I don't know of anybody who'll go to it. I suppose we should make up a party and attend. I've done business with Ashley Wilkes on occasion so I suppose I'll be going."

"I don't mind going if a lunch is provided," observed Roland, picking at a growth on his nose. "But I must be fed, if I am to sit through the eulogy. Can you imagine having to compose that eulogy, what does one say? "

Another laugh.

"Well, I am the most disinterested among you, after all," said Matthew Alistair, who Scarlett sometimes saw at Henry's office, "I try to never wear black gloves, and I almost never eat lunch. But I'll offer to go, if anybody else will. When I come to think of it, I'm not at all sure that I wasn't a friend; for we used to stop and speak whenever we met."

Speakers and listeners strolled away, mixing with other groups. Scarlett knew most of these men, and with a growing sense of confusion, looked toward Frank for an explanation.

The Phantom glided down the street. Its finger pointed to two persons meeting. Scarlett knew these men, in one case intimately. Both were men of business: one very wealthy, and the other of great importance locally.

"How are you," asked Ashley.

"As well as can be expected, how is Beau," returned Rhett politely.

"He's fine. He is leaving for a small tour in the fall, I don't know what I'll do without. I had counted on his Aunt to help me get him ready but…," Ashley winced.. "I didn't expect you to ever come back to Atlanta, did Henry…?" The question stood between them and finally, Rhett nodded.

"He thought I should know. I appreciated him wiring me. I wouldn't have liked to have read about it or learned of it by chance," said Rhett. Rubbing his gloved hands, he smiled apologetically. "It's cold, isn't it?"

Ashley smiled faintly. "You've become spoiled by the weather in Charleston. It's a pleasant climate, or so I've heard. I suppose you're not staying long in Atlanta?"

"No. No. To tell the truth, I'm not even sure why I came. I almost wish I hadn't. This town is full of too many memories, most of them bad." The church bells chimed the hour. "I wanted to pay a few calls before I leave for Charleston, wish Beau a happy holiday for me will you?"

"Yes, of course."

"Good morning Ashley."

"Merry Christmas Rhett." He extended his hand and with only a moment's hesitation, Rhett took it.

Not another word. Their meeting, their conversation, and their parting could have not occupied more than ten minutes time.

Scarlett was surprised that Ashley and Rhett could engage in such polite conversation. Why should the spirit bring her to witness a conversation that seemed rather trivial? Still, she felt assured that there was some hidden purpose so she began to consider what that purpose could be.

Perhaps Pitty Pat had died, Scarlett thought sadly. That made some sense. Rhett was fond of her and Henry knew that. Maybe he'd sent word to Rhett but he was reluctant to be in Atlanta least they saw one another. But that didn't explain the other conversation she'd just witnessed. Those businessmen, they hardly sounded as if they were discussing Pitty. Pitty had no money and she wouldn't need to curry favor with God by donating to charities. She was a sweet, if vaguely silly, woman who'd lived a largely blameless life.

And so, she was missing something. Rhett had looked awful, even worse than when she'd seen him in Charleston and Ashley…well, Ashley had looked old. When she and the spirit reached their next destination, she would pay closer attention.

Then, unexpectedly, the ghost suddenly reached down and took her hand. The wave of ice that engulfed her tore a scream of pain from her throat. It felt as if she'd plunged through ice into a frozen lake. Yanking back, she tried to rip her hand from his terrible grasp. Frank's icy blue eyes were looking at her without emotion. It made her panic and so she struggled against his iron grasp. "Let me go. Frank Kennedy, I mean it, you let me go." His grip tightened and then the world around them blurred.

When the world became solid, again Scarlett found herself in a sort of shop. It had a counter and what might have been described by someone who was less than choosy as wares. The proprietor of the junk shop, an enormous mountain of a man, sat on a stool behind the counter. His chins wobbled liked jelly as he began tearing apart a small roasted fowl. His small, mean looking mouth was shiny with grease. Occasionally he would lift his lips to his mouth and make loud, appreciative sucking noises.

There was nothing in this place that had anything to do with her, she was sure of it. She was about to demand they leave, but before she could speak, a negro woman with a heavy bundle slunk into the shop. The bell over the door rang out, announcing another woman, similarly laden. The two women were so busy glaring at one another that they missed the man in houseman's black who'd come in on the heels of the second woman. Both women stared, hostility in their eyes. He, in turn, was no less startled by the sight of them. After a short period of blank astonishment, all three burst into a laughter.

"Lemme go fir's. I wuz in der righ' afta an' I got tha best'a wh't der wuz," cried the woman who had entered first. "Ole' Carrie go afta, she aint' got nuttin wort havin' an' let Joe be las'. He ain't even 'llow'd upstair, wh't co'ld he have?"

"Now, now no fighting if you please," said the proprietor as he wiped his fingers on his trousers. "Bring those bundles into the backroom. I don't want them opened in the front of the shop. As it is, if it's from whose house I think it is, this lot will have to go to my cousin."

She followed them into the backroom. It was a cavernous space concealed behind a ragged quilt. Silver cups and copper bowls shared space with tarnished brass candlestick holders and rusting iron bedsteads. It was a jumbled lot of junk in Scarlett's opinion, but as she peered into the gloom, she saw several items that were defiantly not junk store wares.

Lumbering over to a threadbare armchair, the shop owner dropped his bulky body into it. "All this fuss, you'd all better have something worth buying or I'll ban the lot of you." Resting his hands on his knees, he grinned. Beckoning to the last two who had arrived, he smiled, a look of greed in his piggy eyes.

"I wuz hea firs'," cried the woman with the largest bundle.

"Haven't you heard those who are last will come first in the kingdom, now hush up."

The man in black went first. Unpacking a small carpetbag, he grinned at the fat man. From the sack he withdrew a pen and pencil set, several desk accessories and some silver picture frames. "Just because I could not go upstairs doesn't mean there was nothing to be had," he said to no one in particular.

"A fine load of plunder," cackled the shop owned, "though the frames are the only thing really worth anything, give you five dollars."

"Five dollars? No, I want eight."

"I'll give you seven, but not a penny more." Without waiting for a reply, he withdrew a stained and worn wallet tied with string. Counting out seven crumpled bills, the fat man waggled a finger in the black man's face. "I hear a word breathed that you were here and I'll have the law on you, understand me boy?"

The black man nodded again and after counting the bills as discreetly as possible, he left the shop hastily.

The fat man gave a wheezing chuckle. "Which of you is next girls?"

"I'z next," declared the woman who'd entered the shop first.

"Every person has a right to take care of themselves, I always say," declared the shop owner.

"Yes sir, they do." She untied the bundles to reveal bed linens in excellent condition.

"These are fine, but I fear much too fine for the sort who comes in here."

"You donn' wan 'em?"

"Now, now, you're putting words in my mouth. I can't give you as much as they might be worth because I don't think I'll be able to shift them easily."

"Iz you taken 'em?"

"I will, ten dollars for all of it. That's my only offer though take it or…"

"I take it."

The fat man counted out ten one dollar bills, which the woman then jammed down the front of her bodice.

Laughing, he offered her one more bill. "That's for not insulting me by counting it."

She took the proffered bill and fled the shop.

"This is disgusting," declared Scarlett; "this is a terrible place and these people… just awful. Frank, this has nothing to do with me, why are we here?"

The spirit made no answer. He only shrugged, signaling to her that he was not prepared to make a reply.

"I don't see what this has to do with me," she grumbled.

"All right, last but not least, let's see it." The last bundle was finally opened. Leaning forward, Scarlett could only see that the sack contained some dark colored fabric, crumbled into a ball from its time in the sack.

"I always give too much to ladies. It's a weakness of mine, and that's the way I ruin myself", said the fat man, fingering the fabric lightly. "This is lovely stuff. I don't know if I'm the sort of place you should be trying to sell this at and that's the truth. A dressmaker might give you more than me."

"She mig't ask me whea I got it, you donn' care," said the woman.

The fat man took out a grubby handkerchief and wiped his hands clean. Standing up, he spread the bundle out on a rickety table. Picking up the item, he shook it out with a snap. "What do you call this? A robe?"

"A wrapper," returned the woman, laughing and leaning forward on her crossed arms. "Betta' den my dresses wha' I wea' otta da hous."

"A wrapper, like to wear to bed. You don't mean to say you took it off her body, lying cold and dead?"

"No suh, it wuz in da bott'm of 'er waredrobe," replied the woman. "Missus can' use it no more, so who care if I toke it?"

"You were born to make your fortune", said the man, "and you'll certainly do it. Twenty dollars and that is my best offer."

"I'll take it."

Scarlett listened to this dialogue in horror. As they sat admiring their spoil, in the scanty light afforded by the man's lamp, she viewed them with detestation and disgust. Her feeling could hardly have been greater, had they been obscene demons, examining the corpse of the poor bastard they'd killed.

Then, the spirit raised his hand and gestured toward the table.

"I was never very good at charades," spat Scarlett, "what do you want me to do?"

Again, the spirit gestured toward the table.

"What, you want me to look on the table?" She threw her hands up; it would figure that even in death Frank still had the ability to vex her. "Fine, fine I'm going."

On the table, spread out so that the woman and the pawnshop proprietor could admire it, was the red velvet robe she'd worn the night of Ashley's birthday party. "Frank, this can't be," said Scarlett, shuddering from head to foot. "That robe is in my closet back at the house. I know it is. I only just saw it the other day. This is a coincidence. It can't be anything else but a coincidence, it just has to be." Turning to face Frank's spirit, she began to plead with him. "The fabric, its just red velvet, anyone could have a wrapper made from red velvet. I see what you are trying to show me, I do. The case of this unhappy woman might have been my own. My life ends this way if I don't change my ways now. Merciful Heaven, what is this?"

She screamed in terror, for the scene had changed. Now she stood beside a bed: a bare, uncurtained bed on a raised dais. Her room in the Peachtree street house had been stripped bare. Her dressing table was emptied of all the little knickknacks that made it hers. The carpets were gone and there was a generally feeling of emptiness throughout.

The room was very dark, too dark to be examined with any accuracy, though Scarlett glanced round it in obedience to a secret impulse, anxious to learn what had happened to her room…to her belongings.

Scarlett glanced towards the Phantom. Its steady hand was pointed to the bedroom door. The door was left ajar, and from beyond it, she could hear voices. Better the company of strangers than the chilly company of the late Frank Kennedy she thought. Without a backward glance, she walked away from Frank toward the semi-open door.

A ginger haired girl with bright green eyes and a smattering of freckles across a high and delicately pointed nose stood talking to a russet haired girl with pale, but pretty features. Their clothes were flattering, but the styling was unfamiliar to Scarlett. The russet haired girl ran a gloved hand over the woodwork. "I can't believe you and Wade grew up here, it looks like a palace." Looking at the stained glass panels set in the bedroom door of the nursery, she giggled a little. "You could fit our townhouse plus three others in here. Did you feel like a princess living here?"

"No, I hated it. This house was big, and cold, and filled with beautiful and very breakable things. Wade and I only lived here for a few years. Mother set us to Tara after Wade's aunt died. That was also Beau's mother. I'm sure Wade's spoken of her."

"Beau was the cousin you were sweet on?"

Ella laughed boisterously, "I was not sweet on him. I think he is handsome, but he is also as interesting as a pile of wood shavings. Now his father, Uncle Ashley, well if I tell you something you mustn't tell Wade I told you."

"Cross my heart and hope to die," vowed the yet unnamed girl.

"Well, our mother was more than sweet on Uncle Ashley. I heard she had an affair with him while she was married to our stepfather. Can you believe it, our mother was an adulteress." Ella giggled. "Trust mother to always be shocking."

"I was not an adulteress," declared Scarlett loudly, "do you hear me Ella Kennedy, I did not have an affair with Ashley Wilkes." She continued to shout, but the girls didn't hear her.

"Your stepfather, that's Captain Butler you're talking about?"

"Yes. I only had him for a father for a few years though. After my half sister died, he stopped caring about what happened to me and Wade. After he left mother, he came out to visit us once or twice a year at Tara."

"But surely that shows he cared for you?"

"No, those visits were out of some sort of sense of duty. I heard from Beau that he's in town for the funeral. I wonder if we'll see him. Wade likes him well enough, that's more than can be said for how he feels about mother."

"Wade never talks about your mother, what was she like?"

"Sad." Ella brushed some dust from a picture with her handkerchief. "She was a very sad woman. Wade doesn't believe this but I think she tried to be kind to us when she remembered we existed. I wouldn't go so far as to say she loved us; I know she really had no use for me at all because I was very shy and scatterbrained when I was small."

"You were shy?"

Ella laughed, punching her companion lightly in the arm. "I'd rather you be surprised that I was considered scatterbrained. Still, when it comes to mother, I think at least she assumed she could leave Wade her share of Tara because he was a boy. That alone made him worth speaking to on occasion."

A thoughtful look settled on the other girl's face. "When we were planning the wedding, I asked if he wanted to invite her. Ella, he was so angry. I don't know if I'd ever really seen him angry about anything before but he was angry then."

"He never could reconcile himself with her. I remember when she came to his graduation from Harvard; he referred to her as a distant relation. He actually introduced our Aunt Sue as his mother to his professors. It was awful really. Aunt Sue was wearing this tacky dress you could tell she thought was suitable for the occasion, though it wasn't. Mother, on the other hand, was wearing some beautifully made suit that probably cost more than Aunt Sue and Uncle Will made in a year but in Wade's eyes he was prouder to be the son of a farmer's wife then…"

"Ella," called a voice from the foyer, "are you up there?"

Ella's eyes went wide. "Good heavens, it's Uncle Rhett." She cupped her hand over her mouth and leaned over the railing. "I am."

"Why don't you come down," he replied.

"Why don't you come up," she teased.

"I'd rather not," he muttered, his drawl more pronounced after years of continuously living in Charleston. "Come down please," he said in a voice loud enough to carry.

"Alright, we'll be down directly."

Turning back toward the bedroom, Scarlett found herself minus one ghost. It appeared that Frank's spirit had left her to fend for herself. "Why should the ghost be any different from the man," she grumbled, tying the sash of her dressing gown more securely. When she looked back up, the girls were gone. Not wanting to be left alone upstairs in the seemingly abandoned house, Scarlett quickly headed down the front stairs. Ella and her friend were a few steps before her but she managed to catch up to them.

Then, all thoughts of the girls or even ghosts of past, present and future were pushed from her mind. There, waiting at the bottom of the stairs, hat in hand and leaning on the bottom banister was Rhett. His dark hair was liberally streaked with gray and his moustache was closely trimmed. She wanted him to see her, more than anything in the world she wanted him to smile at her in that purely Rhett way until she felt tingles run through her body.

A small smile appeared on his still handsome, but careworn face. "Ella."

"Hello Uncle Rhett," Ella said, extending a hand to him. Tilting her head, she asked, "Are you alright? You look as if you've had a shock."

He held her hand, squeezing it briefly. "I'll admit something to you and your charming companion. When you called to me from upstairs, I thought it was your mother. Even now, the way you carry yourself, maybe the shape of your features; I thought it was her coming down the stairs." The pain in his voice became heavy and he moved away from Ella. "When I got here, I looked in her office. I almost thought she'd be there, but of course, she wasn't."

"Where am I," Scarlett asked the air, hoping that Frank would reappear. "Why is the house closed up, why is everyone is acting so strangely? When Charles took me to the past, I saw myself and even in the present, people spoke of me as if I was near by. What's going on here?"

"You're dead," she heard a voice say though no voice pronounced these words in her ears. She saw that dire pronouncement echoed when she looked into Rhett's dark eyes. Moving closer to him, she looked up into his face. There she could read a multitude of emotions. He had suffered a loss. A new and recent loss that was heavy to bear for a man who'd already lost so much.

While Scarlett had been studying his face, Rhett had remembered his manners. Bending gracefully over Abby's hand, Rhett pressed a light kiss against her knuckles. "Hello Abby, its' nice to see you again."

"Captain Butler, hello."

"I thought I told you to call me Rhett, we are family now, after a fashion."

She smiled sweetly. "We are. Will you be at Mr. Wilkes' house tonight for Christmas eve?" A small gasp escaped Ella. Looking at her sister in law's horrified expression, Abby suddenly recalled what it was that Ella had just told her upstairs about her mother and Mr. Ashley Wilkes. "Oh, I …but perhaps you already have plans," she stuttered nervously.

Rhett took pity on Wade's wife. "I'm going back to Charleston tonight. My train is leaving at four. I didn't want to leave without saying goodbye to Ella."

The red flush hadn't faded from Abby's cheeks. "It was good seeing you again Captain Butler," said Abby. "Ella, I'm going to go and wait out in the carriage. This house, its just too much for me. I need some air."

Giving her a fond smile, Ella told her she'd be outside in a few minutes. She waited till Abby had left before asking Rhett, "Did Wade tell you we were here?"

"He did, I don't think he approved."

Ella smirked a little. "No, I don't imagine he would. He hates this house."

"Speaking of which…what will you and Wade do with this place?"

She flinched. "Wade suggested we burn it to the ground, but I don't think that's very practical."

"Little Ella, the practical one in this family, wonders will never cease. Is it practical, no, but his feelings are very understandable. You and Wade are so different Ella. You're like night and day. You've always been very forgiving, something I've come to appreciate because I've been on the receiving end of that forgiveness. Wade, on the other hand, is your mother's son, whether he wants to admit that or not. He holds onto a hurt and allows it to fester. "

"I wish he would have come with me last Christmas to see mother. We had a nice time." Seeing the disbelief in Rhett's eyes, Ella reiterated. "Truly we did. We talked about, well all sorts of things."

Curiosity got the better of him. "Such as?"

"Oh, just about everything. School and what I might do after it finishes. I told her I wanted to go to Baxter's teaching college in Tennessee. I think I'd make a good teacher."

"So do I. You were always good with your cousins. I noticed that when I'd come out to see you and your brother at Tara."

"Thank you. Mother promised that if I finished she would give me some money to start a school. Uncle Rhett, even after I told her I wanted to start one where one was really needed, she still supported me. She didn't bat an eye; she just told me that I should be who ever it is that I'm meant to be. I took that to heart." She blinked back tears. "It was the kindest thing she'd ever said to me, and I believe that she cared for us, even if she never said it."

"Ella," Scarlett moved closer to her daughter, "Rhett's right, you are kinder and more forgiving than either of us deserve."

That old, eager leaping light was in his eyes. "What else did you talk about?"

Ella recognized the look in his eyes. Rhett had worn it when he'd come out to Tara. When she was younger, she'd thought that Rhett had come to Tara not to see them, but to look for Scarlett. Now, she was sure. He'd been able to let her mother go only because he'd been careful never to see her. The waste of it all occurred to her and she silently vowed that if she ever found the kind of love her stepfather and mother nearly had, she would hang onto it tooth and nail.

"Uncle Rhett, you could just ask me if we spoke of you."

"I--."

She smiled. "We did."

He dropped his pretense at disinterest. "What did she say?"

"What do you think she said? She told me that she wished things could have been different between the two of you. She loved you and I know you loved her. She still hoped that one day you'd come home." Ella's brow furrowed slightly, just as Scarlett's so often had. "Did you really truly stop loving her?"

"Ella--," he said, his voice tore at her heart, but she pressed on.

"Please, I need to know. It's like a fairy tale. I just want to know that in the end the King really did love the Queen. Maybe it's childish, but I have know. I need to know that love, true love, doesn't really ever just stop. Please."

"It's complicated."

"Life is complicated. Did you ever stop loving my mother? It's a simple question. Yes or no."

"You won't let this go, will you?"

"Would she?" Ella challenged.

He shook his head. "No. She wouldn't have. I never stopped loving her Ella."

Tears began to fall, streaming down Ella's cheeks. "Then why didn't you just come home?"

He sat heavily on the stairs. Gesturing to the spot next to him, he waited for her to sit. Then, just as he had so often done for her mother, he withdrew his handkerchief from his top pocket and handed it to her.

"Better?" Rhett asked.

"Not really." She sniffled a little. "You still haven't answered my question, why didn't you come back?"

"I was afraid that she wouldn't take me back. When she'd told me that she loved me, I doubted her. Then, even when I came to accept she meant it at the time she said it, I still believed that she might take it back. So rather than allow myself to be hurt, I stayed away."

"But you still ended up getting hurt."

"Yes."

The façade Ella had crafted of a grown woman was crumbling by the minute. She looked like the child she still truly was. "Weren't you ever tempted to come back, even once?"

He looked away from her probing gaze. "Once. I came back to Atlanta with the intent of seeing her. I made it to the store, but as I watched her ordering around her clerks, I thought I couldn't go back to the way things had been. So, I turned tail. I left and went back to the station. I took the next train to Charleston. After that, time passed and I felt I could go on without her, and so I did."

"I'm sorry Uncle Rhett, for you both."

It's all right Ella." Standing, he reached down, extending his hand to her, "Come on, let's get you into the carriage. Abby is waiting and I have a train to catch."

In the doorway, both paused and turned as one body, looking back toward the foyer.

"Good bye Scarlett," Rhett said softly, "sleep well."

And then, they were gone.

She was alone.

"Spirit!" She screamed into the yawning, echoing house, "FRANK! I know you can hear me. I want to leave here, I know you're here." She looked around the dark house. The furniture was shrouded in sheets and a thin film of dust covered many of the surfaces. This is a terrible place, she thought with tears in her eyes. What if I never leave here? Maybe this is hell, this house, alone, for eternity. Maybe this is how houses become haunted? She thought, swallowing back tears.

"Frank," she whispered softly, changing tactics, "please, if we leave here I won't forget the lesson I learned here, trust me. Please Frank…" She looked into the darkness above her. "Frank, I'm sorry…so sorry for it all. Please." She sat on the bottom step of the stairs, drawing her dressing gown tightly around her shivering form.

A small pillar of light began to build in intensity before her until the white robed form of Frank Kennedy stood before her. His eyes were still cool, piercing glowing things, but she thought she could detect a trace of human feeling that had not been in them earlier.

"Even without you speaking, I understand you now," said Scarlett, glad to no longer be alone. "I would undo it all, if I could. But I don't have the power, Spirit." She stood and moving nearer to him, reached out a trembling hand till it nearly rested on his sleeve. But, she could not bring herself to voluntarily touch him. Drawing back, she looked up at him, hoping he'd understand her reluctance. "I'm so sorry Frank. You were good to me, I never knew just how good until Charles took me to see the past. I promise, if I get another chance, I'll tell Ella all about you. I'll make sure she knows what a good, kind man you were."

The spirit remained, never moving, all the while watching her.

"If there is any person in the town, who feels something from my death," said Scarlett quite agonized, "show that person to me, Spirit, I beseech you!"

The Phantom spread its white robes before him for a moment, like a wing; and withdrawing it, revealed a room by daylight.

A man stood at the window in a hotel room. From his painfully erect posture and his eager stance, it was apparent that he was expecting someone. Scarlett watched him walk up and down the room; starting at every sound. He moved to look out the window again; glancing at the clock. Finally, he tried, but in vain, to work through some paperwork. "Damn," he muttered, pushing the papers aside.

Moving to a pile of luggage in the corner of the room, he opened a valise and withdrew a small, tissue wrapped parcel. Undoing a piece of ribbon, he opened the package to reveal a small miniature.

She knew that miniature. It was one of three that had belonged to her father. When Charles had left to go to war, Gerald had given it to him. She'd found the miniature in Charles's belongings after he'd died. How it had come to be in this man's possession, she didn't know.

Sitting back down at the desk, the man ran his fingers through his wavy brown hair. "It would seem mother, that you've won yet again," the man said to the portrait. "I would have been happy never to set foot in this town again. I certainly never wanted to bring Abby here. But you've won again, just as you always do. Here we are and on Christmas too." He laughed bitterly, "Congratulations."

"Wade…" Scarlett reached out a hand, but the spirit stopped her.

"Why couldn't you just live forever, I thought you would. I thought you'd bury us all." He glanced toward the window. From below came the voices of a children's choir singing Christmas carols. He winced, hardly able to bear the voices of the children in their play. "I hate this time of year. I despise it. Poor Abby, she loves it. She can't understand how I could hate it so. But you understand, don't you? Why should I enjoy it? How many years did I have to comfort Ella when you wouldn't come to Tara to see us?"

"Oh Wade," she said, feeling the hurt and anger radiating from her son. "Frank, Wade used to love Christmas. He would ask to put up the tree on All Hallows eve, to see him hate this day…there must be something I can do?"

The spirit moved away from her, looking out on the town. No help was to be had from Frank's ghost.

Then, the words of the spirit of Christmas Present came to her. The human touch, it had the ability to heal, or so the spirit had told her. Moving to her son's side, she cautiously wrapped her arms around her son. "Poor little boy," she whispered. "I never tried to be a good mother for you, but I would have done anything to keep you safe and fed. I'm sorry I never worried about keeping your heart safe. I did love you and I'm so proud of the man you've become."

A change came over Wade's face. She didn't know if he'd heard her, but maybe he'd felt her presence. And, for the first time in their lives, her presence had afforded him some measure of comfort.

Picking up the miniature again, he looked at it for a long time. "How young you were, and how innocent; no wonder my father loved you so. Aunt Melly told me that he thought you were so beautiful, the most beautiful girl in the entire world." He sighed a little, running the tip of his little finger over the varnished surface of the painting. "I thought the same thing, I thought you were so beautiful, the most beautiful woman in the whole wide world, but I never told you. I thought we still had time, all the time in the world." Then, violently, he hurled the miniature across the room. "Mama," he cried out, his head falling forward on his folded arms. "I never said goodbye," Scarlett heard him whisper.

Wade's grief poured from him, shaking his body in near convulsions. Scarlett laid her hands on his shoulders but this time she could not reach him. "Frank, I'm begging you, I can't watch his grief and not do anything." He did not move and in a burst of anger, Scarlett stalked over to the ghost. "He was your son once. When you married me, you swore to me that you'd love Wade as if he were your own, don't you remember that? Do something," she pleaded.

Then, like a prayer answered, Abby came in. Seeing Wade at the desk, she went to him. Holding him close, she stroked his hair gently, encouraging him to finally grieve for the woman he'd both loved and hated; scorned and idolized. "Wade, darling. She loved you, I know she did. Who could know you and not love you?"

She continued to whisper to him, reminding him of how they'd met and how quickly she'd fallen in love with him. In time, Wade's sobbing subsided and they moved to the sofa. Wrapping his arms around Abby, Wade began to tell his wife about his mother. How much he'd loved her and wished for her to love him. He spoke of the day his youngest sister was born and how terrified he was that his mother might die, ignored because of the rejoicing over the new baby.

Scarlett felt tears gather in the corner of her eyes. She hadn't known that on the day Bonnie had been born, Wade had worried so. What a sweet loving boy her son was. She smiled. Or had been. He was a grown man now and while it grieved her that in this future their relationship had been so strained, she was happy that he had the love of a girl who seemed as sweet as he was.

The spirit gestured to her. Understanding that it was time to go, Scarlett spoke, hoping Abby might hear her. "Take good care of my son young lady," Scarlett said wistfully wishing she had the opportunity.

Finding herself out in the street, she allowed the Ghost to conduct her where he wished. The streets they traveled now felt familiar to her feet. They stopped before a house she had only just visited even though in reality it had been several years before. George Ruddy's house; was quiet, so very quiet. The noisy little Ruddys had grown, though they were as still as statues in one corner. The mother and her pretty, slim eldest daughter were engaged in sewing. When once they were happy, joyous and vibrant, now they were so very quiet.

The Ruddy children were older but not significantly so. But shouldn't they be older if Ella was nearly an adult and Wade was married? A quick glance around the room located a calendar from one of the dry goods suppliers she used at the store. The date at the top of the calendar made this a Christmas five years or so before the one she'd just visited. So still a Christmas future, just not as far in the future as the one she'd just seen.

Really, she thought, this whole system is too elongated. If she were in charge, it would be a more orderly system. She was about to suggest as much to Frank, when a motion from one of the inhabitants in the room caught her eye.

The mother laid her work upon the table and put her hand up to her face.

"The color hurts my eyes," she said, blinking back tears.

The color, how could a color hurt her eyes, wondered Scarlett before realization sunk in. Poor little Lizbeth. Poor Ruddy's, poor world; all poorer for her absence. Mrs. Ruddy was in black and the little stool next to the fire was gone now. At the table was one less chair, moved to the corner so it would not remind the family that one of their own was gone.

"They're better now," said George's wife. "I was sewing too long. I wouldn't want to show weak eyes to your father when he comes home. It must be near time."

"Past it rather," Lynn answered, anchoring her needle in the middle of her embroidery. "But I think he has walked a little slower than he used to."

They were very quiet again. At last, Mrs. Ruddy said and in a steady, cheerful voice, that only faltered once: "I---I remember when he would walk with Lizbeth upon his shoulder, he walked very fast indeed."

"I do too", cried Lynn.

"Me too", exclaimed another. So had all. The squeak of the door handle pulled them from their memories.

Coming to her feet, Mrs. Ruddy swiped a sleeve over her face to clear away any stray tears. "There's your father at the door, no tears."

She hurried out to meet him. His tea was ready for him, the kettle just beginning to sing its whistling song. The two young Ruddy's sat at his knee each laying a hand on his knee, each child wearing a hopeful expression, as if to say, "Don't mind it, father. Don't grieve so."

George was very cheerful with them, and spoke pleasantly to all the family. He looked at the work upon the table, and praised the industry and speed of Mrs. Ruddy and Lynn.

"You stopped to see her," said his wife.

"Yes, my dear," replied George. "I wish you would go. It would do you good to see how well kept a place it is. I promised her that I would walk there on Sundays. I've visited her often, my little child." He broke down all at once. He couldn't help it. "My poor little child," moaned George.

He left the room, and went upstairs into the room above. From a drawer he took a small, square of sewing. The unfinished sampler the ghost of Christmas present had previously spoken of, thought Scarlett. Poor George. He sat down in it, and cried a little while clutching the square of linen. After he composed himself, he kissed the little square of fabric and placed it reverently back in its hiding place.

"Hello my dears," he said, as he paused on the bottom stair.

"Come sit by the fire George," entreated Mrs. Ruddy.

"I'm sorry, I just needed a moment to gather my thoughts. I must tell you, I saw Mr. Wilkes today, you know him Molly, Melanie Wilkes was his wife?"

She nodded, gesturing for him to continue. "He told me he was terrible sorry' to hear about Lizbeth's passing. Then, he offered me a job. So, it would seem that things are going to be alright. I will tell you that I felt for an instant as if Lizbeth was there, my little guardian angel, caring for me…caring for all of us still."

"I'm sure she is and Mr. Wilkes, what a good soul," said Mrs. Ruddy.

"He is indeed," said George, "I'll sleep easier tonight knowing that I'll still have employment should Mrs. Butler's children ever decide to close the store."

"Do you think they will," asked Lynn.

"I imagine that when Mrs. Butler passes on, they will close the store. Mr. Hamilton lives up North and I've heard that he's just become engaged. I wrote to him, to let him know that Mrs. Butler doesn't come to the store very often anymore, indeed that anyone seldom sees her, but I received no reply."

"How could he not come, even if his mother is who she is," asked Mrs. Ruddy.

"They aren't particularly close, so I suppose it's difficult." George took a piece of bread and peeled of the crusts. "I think Wade Hampton would prefer to forget Atlanta and Mrs. Butler."

"I will never forget Lizbeth," declared Hannah, now the youngest Ruddy girl once more, "none of us shall, not ever."

"Never," cried the other children.

"I know that," said George lovingly. "I know, my dears, that when we recollect how patient and how sweet she was; although she was so sickly, we shall not quarrel easily among ourselves, for we should look to Lizbeth's example.

Mrs. Ruddy kissed him, his daughters kissed him, and his son hugged him close.

"Specter", said Scarlett, "something informs me that our parting moment is at hand. I know it, but I don't know how. Tell me, is there anything else left for us to see?"

The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come nodded, solemnly, once up and once down. Gesturing to the door, Scarlett walked forward, opening it for the both of them.

On the other side, she did not find the street outside the Ruddy's house, but instead an iron gate. She paused to look round before entering.

Oakland Cemetery. This was the graveyard where Charles, Frank, Bonnie and Melly were buried. Here, so many who were dear to her slept eternally. Frank's spirit stood among the graves, pointing down to one in particular. She advanced towards it on unsteady legs. The brief humanity that had earlier come into Frank's face was gone now. The Phantom was exactly as it had been. She found she still dreaded his expressionless face.

"Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point," Scarlett said, "answer me one question. Are these the shadows of the things that will be, or are they shadows of things that may be?"

Still the Ghost pointed downward to the grave by which it stood.

"My previous choices foreshadow certain ends," concluded Scarlett thoughtfully, "but if my bad choices are departed from, the ends will change, won't they?"

The Spirit was immovable as ever.

Scarlett crept towards the gaping, open grave, and leaning forward, reading upon the stone of the grave her own name, _SCARLETT O'HARA HAMILTON KENNEDY BUTLER_. No flowers adorned the grave. No epitaph stating beloved mother, cherished wife. Not even a psalm or a line from a hymn. Nothing to show that she had mattered to anyone.

"Please spirit, tell me this is not the end," she cried, kneeling beside her own grave.

The finger pointed from the grave to her and back again.

"No, Spirit! Oh Frank no, no!"

The finger still was there, pointing.

"Frank," she sobbed, tight clutching at his robe. "Hear me! I am not the woman I was. I will not be the woman I would have been had it not been for you and the other spirits intercession. Why show me this, if I am past all hope!"

For the first time the hand appeared to shake.

"Good Spirit", she pursued, as down upon the ground she fell before it. "If you didn't care, why conduct me through the future? Tell me that I yet may change these shadows you have shown me, by an altered life."

The figure trembled.

"I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will look to Past, live in the Present, and beware backsliding so that I may change my Future. All three spirits shall be with me always. I will not shut out the lessons that I was taught on this Christmas Eve. Oh, tell me I may erase this bitter, lonely, unloved end!"

In her agony, she caught the spectral hand. It sought to free itself, but she was strong in her fear and uncertainty, and she managed to detain it. The Spirit, stronger yet, shoved her backwards toward the hole in the earth.

Screaming, she fell backward, her hands flung out, desperate to gain any purchase on the sides of her earthen prison. Scrambling to her feet, earthen walls stretching above her. "Frank," she cried, "don't leave me down here."

Above her, leaning over the grave, she saw an alteration in the Phantom's face. The skin blistered, peeling back until nothing but a grinning skull was revealed. Screaming again, she collapsed, and fell to the ground.


	5. Chapter 5

Scarlett opened her eyes to find herself lying in Rhett's bed. The morning sun streamed through the windows and the clock on the mantle read half past nine. Tumbling from the bed, she ignored the pain in her shin when she banged it into the bedside table. "Am I back," she wondered aloud.

Running into her old room, she ripped open the wardrobe and dug at the back till she found the red robe. It was there, just where she left it. No one had sold it. Still cradling it in her arms, she walked into the middle of the room. All of the ornaments were in their usual places and there was no sign that anything had been disturbed.

"I'm back," she cried happily, spinning in a circle. "I'm home and its morning." She ripped back the covers on the bed, there were the linens just as they should be. "Oh thank God. And thank you Grandmother Robillard. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future," Scarlett repeated, as she walked back into Rhett's room. "Do you all hear me? The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me always. Oh Grandmother! Heaven, and Christmas be praised for this." Falling to her knees, she began to pray, a prayer born of gratitude and thanksgiving.

She was so flustered and so alive with joy that she scarcely knew what to do next. One minute she had been sobbing violently, trapped in her own grave and the next, she'd awoken in her own bed.

"I am here, alive and well. The shadows of the things that would have been, I have the chance to change it all. And I will change, I know I will!"

On the hook next to the door, she found her dressing gown. The red clay of Tara had vanished from the hem, but even that did not banish the knowledge that four spirits had come to her and saved her from continuing down a path that would only lead to heart break for her and her loved ones.

"Great balls of fire, the children," murmured Scarlett guiltily. Returning to her old room, she dug through the wardrobe until she found a festive red and green plaid dress. A charming black velvet vest completed it. Was it wrong to wear color so soon after Melly and Bonnie's passing? Possibly. But Bonnie had loved colorful, bright things as any small child did and as for Melly…Melly had always felt that people mourned with their heart, not their wardrobe.

Clutching the dress, she went back to Rhett's room and yanked the bell pull to summon her maid. "I don't know what to do first," said Scarlett, laughing and crying in turns. "I am as light as a feather, I haven't been this merry at Christmas since I was Wade's age"

Waiting for her maid to help dress her, she went to sit by the fire, which was now nothing but cold ash. "It's all right, it's all true, it all happened." Then she laughed again until her belly ached and tears streamed down her smiling face. For a woman who had been out of practice for the last few years, it was a splendid laugh, a free and joy filled laugh.

Then, an awful thought came to her. "But, what if it isn't Christmas Day?" She mused out loud. "I don't know what day of the month it is. I don't know how long I've been among the Spirits. I'm assuming they did it all in one night, but if they didn't…then I've missed Christmas Day and let the children down again."

When her maid entered the room, Scarlett flew to her side and clutching the girl's arm, she demanded, "What day is this?"

"Ma'am," returned the maid, her eyes goggling at her mistress' behavior..

"What's today," demanded an eager Scarlett. "Please," she added, just in case the spirits were still watching.

"T'day? Miz Sca'lett, iz Chris'maz day."

The churches ringing out to celebrate the birth of the savior of man interrupted her. Clash, clang, hammer; ding, dong, bell. Bell, dong, ding; hammer, clang, clash! Oh, what a glorious, glorious noise, thought Scarlett laughing aloud.

To the window she flew. Opening it, she put out her head. No fog, no mist; just a clear, bright, wonderful day. Golden sunlight was streaming down from a heavenly blue sky. The fresh air was cold, but utterly refreshing. Oh what a glorious Christmas, she thought, the best there ever was!

"It's Christmas day," said Scarlett to herself. "I haven't missed it. The Spirits have done it all in one night. Of course they did. They can do anything they like. Of course they can. Of course they can." She seized the hands of the confused maid. "It's Christmas, I haven't missed it."

"No ma'am," stuttered the maid.

"Do you know Hubert Teller's dry goods shop down in Five Points? The one with the gingerbread and sweets castle?" Scarlett inquired.

"Yes'm, eveybodie knows hiz place. He always got some pretty than'g in the winda at Christmaz", replied the maid.

"Aren't you a clever gir!" Scarlett exclaimed. "Is the castle still there, do you think?"

"'magine so Miz Sca'let?"

"Excellent, wonderful," said Scarlett.

"Iz saw it when I com' dis mornin'."

"Pefect," crowed Scarlett gleefully. "Go and buy it."

"Miz Sca'lett," exclaimed the girl, "I don thik iz onea dos than'gs whuts fo' sale." The girl hazarded a smile. "You funnin' me Miz Sca'lett, likea joke?"

"No, no," said Scarlett, "I'm serious. Go and buy it, tell Hubert Teller it's for me specifically and that he is not to bring it here. I'll give him directions when he comes to see me. Tell Pork you'll need the carriage to go down there."

She went to her reticule and withdrew a fistful of bills. Giving them to the girl, she smiled. "If Mr. Teller doubts you, lay this out on the table and I imagine he'll change his tune." Taking a few more bills out she folded them neatly and gave them to the girl. "This is for you."

Looking down at the amount of money now clutched in her hand, the girl's eyes widened. There had to be nearly ten dollars, the girl estimated quickly. Looking back up at her employer, the girl managed to speak. "Wut's dis for Miz Sca'lett?"

She smiled encouragingly. "What do you think that's for?"

The girl was so out of sorts that she blurted the first thing to come to mind. "To k'ep me mouth shut," she mumbled, clutching the two rolls of cash.

"Not quite," replied Scarlett dryly. "After you've run my errand, do you have family in town?"

"Yes'm."

"Good, take that money and buy what ever you like. If you bring Mr. Teller back in the next half hour, I'll give you ten dollars more. Now, send someone else up to dress me." When the girl did not move, Scarlett made a shooing motion. "Off you go now, hurry."

The girl was off like a shot.

"I'll send it to George Ruddy," whispered Scarlett, rubbing her hands together, collapsing on a chair, laughing softly. "I'll send it, and I'll do it anonymously. He won't know who sent it. It's twice the size of Lizbeth. And I'll send other things beside. A goose maybe, if …" Her forehead wrinkled, as she recalled the visit to Pitty's house the day before, or rather last night…or was it today. All that traveling with ghosts could make a body crazy trying to sort it out. "Why on earth did Pitty's house smell like ham? She always has mutton for…" Her lips twisted in a smirk. "India."

Going to her small writing table, she withdrew several sheets of paper and a pencil. The hand in which she wrote out the lists and addresses was not a steady one, but write it out she did, not trusting herself to remember all it was she wanted to do for George's family. Another maid came and together they dressed her in record time. Going downstairs, she refused breakfast, asking to instead be served coffee in the library. Once settled there, she stared into the flames, reflecting on the events of the previous night.

"Miss Scarlett," said Pork from the doorway, "Mr. Teller is here."

Coming to her feet, she smiled at the irate but blatantly curious expression on Hubert Teller's face. He must be quite annoyed to have been summoned away from his business and on Christmas morning. But, she added to herself, not so annoyed that he'd refuse my money and tell my maid off.

Deciding to bring her old belle smile out of retirement, taking it out on a trial run, as it were, she smiled brilliantly until her dimples deepened and her eyes danced. "Hubert Teller," she exclaimed, extending her hands, "how good it was of you to come. And today of all days, My girl told you that I wanted to buy that castle of yours, will you sell it to me?"

A flush settled over his features. He'd come to Scarlett Butler's house with the intention of giving her a piece of his mind for summoning him like a peasant, but currently he could not locate the piece of mind which he had wished to gift her with. Her green eyes sparkled at him and the smile on her lovely face seemed as if it were there just for him.

"I--sell it? The castle? Oh, yes, if you want it," he stammered, taking her hands. She gave a small, tinkling laugh that reminded him of tiny silver bells on sleighs in his native Massachusetts. In a gesture that he had not employed in ages, he bent forward and kissed her hand. "Yes," he said, some measure of composure resurfacing. "I will sell it to you, if you'd like it. Your girl told me that you didn't want it brought here, to where will I be delivering it?" He thought it could be Ashley Wilkes' and his boy who might be the intended recipients, but he thought it better not to guess.

"Want it? I do indeed; in fact I shall remember it, as long as I live," cried Scarlett, gesturing for him to sit. "I've always meant to come in and tell you how much I admire your Christmas castle. I've looked at them every year, but this one is the most beautiful of them all."

He smiled at her pleasantly. "Thank you. My brother and I do them. They aren't so much for sale as they are just to…" he smiled self-consciously. "Well, I suppose to make people happy. Do you know, I've never sold one of them before? I don't know what I should ask for it."

What an honest expression he has in his face, she thought. It's a wonderfully honest face. His store makes money and I imagine he never cheats a soul. At any rate, I've never heard anyone complain about him. In future, I'll try to run my shop more like his. "Well, I suppose figure out what it cost for the materials, and the time and labor. I imagine a gingerbread castle is much like a house in that respect, when it comes to figuring out the asking price."

He laughed. "I suppose that's true. You didn't say, who is it for?"

"Oh," she covered her mouth, giggling. "I guess I didn't. It's for my senior clerk, George Ruddy, you know him don't you?"

"Yes, I—of course I know George. You say the castle is for him?"

"More for his children than him. Have you ever seen his children? They are all so darling, especially his youngest." Handing him the first list, she looked up at him helplessly, through lowered lashes. "I have a whole list of things I'd like you to package up and send to him for today. I know its terribly short notice, but I hoped, in honor of the day," she turned her smile on him, full force. "It is Christmas Day, so I hoped you might make allowances for my shortsightedness in asking you to do this all today." Her lower lip trembled slightly, "How terrible I am to put you out like this, if you tell me good day and leave without another word, I would understand."

Not bothering to look at the list, Hubert Teller rose. "Mrs. Butler, it would be a pleasure to do this…for you and for George. I have always thought him a fine man and had he ever left your employment, I would have snatched him up in a second. It cannot be unknown to you that he's had some bad luck in the past. I'll fill your list, at cost. As for the castle, make some donation to any charity you like, I think giving George Ruddy and his family the best Christmas they've ever known is a worthy and admirable cause."

"Oh Mr. Teller!"

Completely besotted, he held up a hand. "Hubert. Please, call me Hubert. All of my friends do. I'll admit to you, I've always thought you were a little," he flushed again.

"Cold hearted," she supplied merrily, "nasty, underhanded perhaps, sharp tongued? Mr. Teller, Hubert, all of those adjectives and more could have described me before last night."

"And now?"

"And now, things have changed, for the better. I wish you a Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas, Mrs. Butler."

"Scarlett. I insist. You'll be able to carry the castle to George's house without a problem? I don't want to leave you shorthanded. I could have some of the staff take it?"

"Not at all. My brother and I will take it. Seeing the look on the faces of those children, I can't resist."

They wished each other a Merry Christmas once more and Scarlett promised to take up Hubert Teller and his brother on an invitation to afternoon coffee after the holiday season ended. Watching the carriage pull away, Scarlett waved from the door till it was out of sight.

Pulling on her coat and digging out a bonnet she'd never had the chance to wear, she dressed herself not in her best, but rather in her most festive. After some last minute instructions to Pork regarding the staff, she at last got out into the streets. The people were by this time pouring forth, as she had seen them with the Ghost of Christmas Present. Walking with a lightness that had long been absent from her step, Scarlett regarded every one with a delighted smile.

She looked so irresistibly pleasant, that many a gentleman and ever some women said "Good morning, Miss Scarlett. A merry Christmas to you." Scarlett said afterwards, that of all the wonderful things one could hear, those tidings were the happiest and most welcome.

She came at last to the house of Dr. and Mrs. Meade. It sent a guilty pang across her heart to think how Mrs. Meade would look upon her when they met; but she knew what path lay straight before her. Scarlett, never one to shirk or delay the inevitable, knocked on the door.

"Mrs. Meade," said Scarlett, quickly before Mrs. Meade could order her from her doorstep, "Give me a minute of your time, then you can order me from your property." When the old lady only stood there, waiting, Scarlett continued. "I hope you succeeded yesterday. When you came to the store, I was not at my best. Although, when have I ever been very good at helping anyone I didn't have a personal interest in?" She smiled. "I've come to apologize, to wish you a merry Christmas and to give you this." She handed Caroline Meade a slip of paper.

It was a check; in an amount, that Caroline Meade had never seen written out on a check addressed to her. It was actually in an amount she'd never seen written out, period. "Scarlett?"

"Yes," said Scarlett. "That is my name, and I fear it may not be pleasant to you. Allow me to ask your pardon. Will you forgive me my harsh words yesterday?"

"Lord bless me," gasped Mrs. Meade, as if her breath were taken away. "My dear, Scarlett, are you serious?"

"Quite serious," said Scarlett. "Not a penny less. A great many back payments are included in that amount, I assure you. The money isn't just from me, its from Frank Kennedy and Rhett, you told me that both men gave each year to the poor?"

"Yes."

"Well, since Rhett is away and Frank, God rest his soul, can no longer give, let me do so in their stead."

"My dear Scarlett," said Mrs. Meade, "come inside, its so cold, you'll catch your death…"

At that, Scarlett laughed merrily. Later Mrs. Meade told Doctor Meade it was one of the prettiest, sweetest, most honest laughs she'd ever heard in her life. "Mrs. Meade, I can assure you, I won't catch my death this Christmas or for many to come. I have a lot to make up for so I expect to live a good long time.

"At least come in for a cup of tea. I don't know what to say to such generosity, please won't you come in."

"Don't say anything, please," retorted Scarlett. "Except that you'll come and see me. Will you come and see me?"

"I will," promised the older woman, not stopping to consider that only yesterday afternoon she'd never have imagined herself sitting on the same bench as Scarlett Butler, let alone paying a social call on her. But, it was clear she meant to do it.

"I'll look forward to it, Mrs. Meade," said Scarlett. "I am much obliged to you. I won't have time today, but when you come will you bring Mrs. Elsing? I owe her an apology as well. I only hope she'll give me a chance to make amends."

"She will Scarlett I'll ask her to come as a favor to me. May the good lord bless you Scarlett Butler."

"He has, Mrs. Meade. He truly has." Smiling again, her eyes wide with happiness, "she asked if Doctor Meade was home. Finding him to be out already, she asked if Mrs. Meade would give him a message, which she readily promised she would.

Before she left, Mrs Meade kissed her cheek and whispered softly in her ear, "Melly would be so proud of you, so proud."

With that blessing in her ear and joy in her heart, she went to church, lighting some candles. Then, she walked about the streets, and watched the people hurrying to and fro. She dropped money into the hands of beggars, and looked up at the blue sky, enjoying the crisp fresh air. There was so much around her that could yield pleasure. She had never dreamed that any walk—that anything—could give her so much happiness. After a stop at a butcher and a generous tip to secure the loan of a boy to carry a parcel, she made her way to Pitty's house.

"Uncle Peter," Scarlett said with a smile, "is Aunt Pitty at home?"

The old family retainer was about to answer when Ashley came out of the library. "Scarlett, you came?"

"Only to say hello, this boy has a present for India and Pitty from me, will you call them?"

"They stepped out, but I'm expecting them any minute. Come and wait with me?"

She nodded, "Only for a minute."

When he closed the library door behind them, she raised an eyebrow. "If India sees that, she'll have something to say."

"Let her, I don't care. You are my friend and if she can't accept that, she can find a way to cope with it."

"Why Ashley Wilkes, that sounds almost combative. Don't fight with your sister on my account, and certainly not on Christmas Day."

"For you dearest, anything. I'm glad you came," he said, his voice taking on a different sound.

"Me too, but as I said, I'm only stopping for a minute. I have to go back to the house."

"Did Captain Butler come home?"

Scarlett went to the window. Fingering the bobbles on the curtain lightly. "Rhett did not come home. But, I wasn't expecting him to." Turning her head, she glanced at him over her shoulder. "I imagine he's with his mother today," she said with a secretive smile.

"He's written to you then?"

"No."

"Then how do you know he's still in Charleston? He told you that he was going there months ago. He could be anywhere by now."

"He could be, but he isn't. Trust me, I know where he is and if he isn't home soon, I'll do something to fix that."

"Scarlett." He reached out and turned her gently. Tilting her face up, he smiled down at her. "You look so beautiful today, so happy. It's been a long time since I've see you happy. If Rhett Butler comes back, will you lose this new found happiness?"

She curved her hand over his, gently taking it from her face. She squeezed his hand before letting go of it. "I'm happy for a multitude of reasons Ashley, Rhett is one of those reasons. I know in my heart he'll come back to me; one way or another. He loves me Ashley."

"If he loves you…"

"Then how could he leave me?" She finished.

"Yes."

"He needed time. Some people do."

"What do you need Scarlett?"

"A chance to make amends with those I've hurt most. I can't stay much longer. I have the carriage waiting for me at home. I'm going to Tara to get my children. I'm bringing them home."

"Scarlett, that's wonderful. Beau's missed Wade and Ella so much."

"I'm sure they've missed him too."

He rested his hand on her cheek. "Something's changed, hasn't it?"

"How do you mean?"

"It seems silly, but something has changed since I've spoken to you yesterday. Tell me what."

"I can't explain it Ashley. You'd think I'd gone mad."

His gray eyes looked into hers. "I promise you Scarlett, I won't think you're mad."

Scarlett had forgotten how comforting it could be to just talk to Ashley as a friend. "It's a strange story. One I wouldn't believe if anyone were telling it to me."

He led her over to the sofa before sitting in the chair across from it. Later she thought she must have been desperate to tell someone or she would have never told Ashley her story on any account.

"Then I woke up in my bed, and nothing had changed except me," she said, concluding the tale. She shrugged. "Go on, tell me I'm crazy or better yet, tell me you believe me so that you can go send Uncle Peter to fetch Doctor Meade."

"I believe you."

She exploded with disbelief. "You believe me? Just like that? Oh, come now Ashley. I expected something…well I don't know what I expected you to say. But," she held up a warning finger, "whatever I expected you to say, it wasn't just I believe you."

"Scarlett…"

"No." She came to her feet, moving to the window again. She felt him behind her and whirled to face him. "Ashley, I just told you that I saw the ghost of my dead grandmother, your cousin, Frank Kennedy and some man who I didn't even know. How can you just say you believe me?"

"Do you believe it happened?"

"I know it did."

"Then I believe you because you are the most practical person I know. If you say you saw all the things you say you did, I believe you." He grinned. "That parcel, it's a leg of mutton, isn't it?"

"So what if it is? Is it a crime to bring someone a leg of mutton at Christmas?"

"No it isn't."

"I think Pitty will be pleased."

"You said the present was also for India?"

"It is. Trust me, no one should come between Aunt Pitty and her mutton. I've done India a favor, a bigger one than she'll ever realize."

"May I ask you one more thing?"

"Of course."

"You said you saw Charles?"

"Yes."

"How was he?" Ashley laughed self-consciously. "I suppose that sounds strange."

Scarlett began to laugh until she could hardly stand. When she was able to speak again, she grinned at him. "I just told you that in the course of one night I traveled with several ghosts to various points in my life. Being asked how Charles is, not the strangest thing to happen to me in the last few days. Not by a mile."

"How was he?"

"As sweet as he was in life Ashley. I wish I'd realized how sweet he really was."

Moving to brush back a tendril of hair from her cheek, Ashley smiled wistfully. "Do you remember the Christmas I had my furlough?"

"When I made a complete fool of myself and threw myself at you?"

"That isn't how I would have described it."

"Why not, its what happened." She started to move away, but he gently caught her by the hand.

"No, that is not what happened. I kissed you back, just as I did in the orchard that day. I'm sorry Scarlett. I want you to be happy, I've always wanted that for you. You're sure Rhett still loves you, do you love him?"

"With my whole heart."

"Then for your sake, I'll pray that he comes back to you soon." He leaned down and brushed a kiss on the side of her face, high just above her cheekbone. It was soft, no more than a brush of his lips. She smiled. In the old days, she would have turned her head in an attempt to take more than what was offered. Now, she wanted nothing more from Ashley than his friendship.

"Be my friend Ashley?"

Warmth lit his eyes and he smiled. Lifting her hand to his lips he said, "Always, as long as I live."

"Merry Christmas Ashley," she said gently.

"Merry Christmas Scarlett."

Pitty and India arrived home a short time later. After giving her a chilly hello, India retreated to the security of her bedroom leaving Pitty, Ashley and Scarlett to spend the better part of an hour in pleasant recollections of Christmas' past. Scarlett asked about Charles, what he was like as a boy. If he'd been excited when she'd agreed to marry him. What plans he'd had for their future after the war.

The old woman was delighted. For years, she'd been told by everyone close to her that Scarlett hadn't cared for Charles. India had once gone so far as to say that Scarlett had seemed to be glad to be rid of him. But, here she was now, asking all about him and looking as if the answers she received truly mattered to her.

As she left, politely refusing Pitty's invitation to stay, Scarlett gave the old woman one final gift. She promised that she would bring Wade over for tea very soon so that Pitty could tell Wade about his father. "I want him to know everything he can about Charlie," she said solemnly. "Wade's father was a wonderful man. Melly tried to keep him alive for Wade, its my turn now."

In the ensuing years, many good things would happen to Scarlett. There would be other Christmas's filled with laughter, with friends, with family. There would be love and joy. In later years, she would travel over the ocean, spending Christmas in Dublin one memorable year. Yes, in time, many wonderful things would happen to Scarlett Butler but all would pale in comparison to the memory of her children running down the front lawn of Tara to meet her carriage.

How could the sun rising over Rome compare with her daughter throwing her small arms around her neck, nearly knocking her down before whispering, "I knew you would come, I knew it mama." No, there was nothing that could compare with that pronouncement of complete and total faith.

How could the profits, considerable though they were, from opening a second Kennedy Emporium compare with the expression of surprise, followed by joy on Wade's face when she shifted Ella to one hip and reached out her other arm to him?

She would remember, for the rest of her life, the utter wave of contentment that passed over her as she held her children close on Christmas Day. She would remember too the look of complete shock on Suellen's face when she walked into Tara, hand in hand with her children and announced that she would be taking them back to Atlanta before the day ended.

Airily, she told her sister that it would be appreciated if she could have Prissy pack up Ella and Wade's belongings. She would send the carriage back out for their things in a few days.

Then, she went and spoke to Mammy. At first, Mammy was completely averse to returning to the house in Atlanta. Scarlett did not attempt to cajole her, but she explained that she wanted to try and be a proper mother to her two remaining children and she needed Mammy. Not to instruct or to oversee her efforts, but to just be there. She told Mammy that she wanted her to return so she could take care of her. Mammy's old, rheumy eyes looked into Scarlett's bright green eyes and finally, she smiled.

"Yes'um Miz Sca'let, I come bac witcha."

That night Scarlett, Wade, Ella and Mammy spent a pleasant evening in the kitchen of the Peachtree Street house. A few servants had stayed, not having anywhere to go. At first, they'd intended to interrupt their dinner to serve Scarlett and the children. Finding this out from Mammy, Scarlett sat the children down at the large kitchen table, fixed them each a plate and then she and Mammy sat down to Christmas dinner with several members of the household staff.

The next day, she was in her office at her usual time. The clock struck nine. No George A quarter past. No George. In the end, he was full eighteen minutes and a half late. Scarlett sat with her door wide open, waiting for him to take his place behind the counter.

His hat was off, before he even opened the door. His scarf jammed into a ball in the sleeve of his coat. He was in his apron in a jiffy; opening the ledger book quickly, as if he were trying to turn the hour back to nine o'clock.

"George Ruddy! I see you there," growled Scarlett, in her accustomed voice, or as near as she could feign. "What do you mean by coming here at this time of day?"

"I am very sorry Mrs. Butler," said George. "I know I'm late, I'm terribly sorry."

"You are, are you?" Repeated Scarlett. "Yes. I think you are. Richard, go and find something to do, not in the store, if you please. George, step this way."

"Its only once a year, Mrs. Butler," pleaded George, taking off his apron. "I won't repeat it. Yesterday, Mrs. Butler, it was a special day."

"Now, I'll tell you what, George Ruddy", said Scarlett, "I am not going to stand this sort of thing any longer. This situation can not continue, not for another minute, therefore" she gave him a fierce frown, "therefore I am about to raise your salary and change your title to head clerk."

George trembled, violently "Please, don't fire me Mrs. Butler, I…" His mouth fell into an O shape.

"A merry Christmas, George, even if it's a day late," said Scarlett, with an earnestness that could not be mistaken, as she came out from behind her desk. "A merrier Christmas, George, than I have given you, for many a year. I'm going to raise your salary, and endeavor to help your family, especially your youngest." She held out a hand to him, "I promise you George, we will see her through and in time, she will be well and strong."

Scarlett was better than her word. She did it all, and infinitely more. To Lizbeth, who did not die, she was a second mother, or as Lizbeth called her, a guardian angel. She became as good a friend, as good an employer, and as good a woman, as the city of Atlanta had ever known. Some people laughed to see the alteration in her, but she let them laugh, and indeed joined in their laughter; for she was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset. Her own heart laughed and that was quite enough for her.

She did not see her grandmother again, at least not in life. The ghosts never appeared to her again but she lit candles for each man every Christmas Eve thereafter.

It was said of her, that she knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man or woman alive possessed the knowledge.

May that be truly said of us all.

And so, as a man named Charles Dickens once observed,

God bless us, everyone!

_The end...or is it?_

_

* * *

_

**_A/N_**

**_So, its like this....there could be another chapter after this, one in which a certain tall, dark, brooding anti-hero is featured. Or this could be the end, let me know if there is an interest in a final chapter._**

**_HAPPY NEW YEAR!_**


	6. Chapter 6

It was January first, the start of the New Year. A year that Scarlett felt certain would be different from all others that had preceded it.

She'd given Richard a raise when she promoted George and in a sudden burst of generosity, she'd given him New Year's Day off. She had it on good authority that since he'd unexpectedly come up in the world, he was going to propose marriage to his sweetheart.

George also had the day off. Doctor Meade and another doctor, a young man from Tennessee were consulting with the Ruddy's about Lizbeth. It looked as if she would have to go to a hospital in Tennessee for a time. The hospital had achieved much success with children just like Lizbeth. George was apprehensive about sending his child but Scarlett swayed him with the help of Doctor Meade.

The Ruddy's, poor but proud, had also been nervous about the cost but Scarlett alleviated his fears in that sector as well. She was paying Lizbeth's entire bill, whatever it was, in full. When George and Molly attempted to discuss a payment plan, Scarlett changed the subject. Successive attempts to discuss the debt were met with similar rebuffs.

So, with both clerks off for the day, Scarlett was once again behind the counter of the store. Thinking that they might have a pleasant time together, Scarlett brought the children along. Wade curled up in the chair next to the potbelly stove, a little notebook in his hand. Since their visit to Pitty's a few days after Christmas Day, Wade had taken to writing down everything he could remember having heard about his father from his late aunt. The previous evening he'd confided to his mother that he wanted to write a novel about his father and perhaps some of the boys from Clayton County who'd gone to war and never returned.

Then, never meeting her eyes, he asked if Uncle Rhett was ever coming home. She was as honest with him as she felt she could be with a child. She explained that if Uncle Rhett didn't come home in another month or two, she would ask Pitty if Wade and Ella might stay with her for a few days while their mother went to Charleston. Wade was careful of her feelings, telling her that so long as he and Ella had their mother and she had them, they would manage just fine.

She could see how much it hurt him to admit that Rhett might not return to them. For years, he had counted on Rhett for affection and parental interest. Even before they'd married, Rhett had been fond of Wade. That fondness had been returned in the form of hero worship. Wade once idolized Rhett, but now, Rhett's defection of not only herself but of Wade and Ella hurt him.

Turning her attention from Wade, Scarlett felt a little easier watching Ella.

Ella, not one to usually lose herself in quiet pursuits, was occupied with a small slate and a chunk of chalk Scarlett found for her. The other day, Scarlett and Ella played school in the playroom. She noticed that Ella took great pleasure in enacting the role of teacher. Scarlett still wasn't precisely sure if Ella's future choice of occupation would change now that the future was being reshaped, but regardless, the little girl had enjoyed not only the game, but also spending time with her mother.

That, in Scarlett's opinion, was what mattered most.

Closing the ledger book on the counter, Scarlett smiled warmly at Ella. "We should do something for lunch." Glancing over at her son, Scarlett smile widened. "Wade?" He did not reply. Lost in his notebook; lunch the furthest thing from his mind. "Your brother is ignoring me Ella."

Ella nodded, knowing that her mother's tone of voice meant she didn't take Wade's lack of response as an insult. "Mama, I want to do something."

"Go to lunch?" Scarlett suggested hopefully. Things were certainly changing. Lately, she'd found herself with an appetite again.

Ella shook her head. "No."

Bemused, Scarlett smiled. "What do you want to do then?"

Pointing to the ladder on its track behind the counter, Ella smiled winningly. "A ride."

"You've had one already," said Scarlett, trying to hide a smile.

Her tiny lips drew into a little frown. "One more?" Ella pleaded.

Scarlett held up one finger. "Just one." Going to the door, she tacked up a sign that said 'Please call again later.'

Scampering up the ladder, Ella held on tightly. "If this was my store, I'd do this all day," Ella declared.

Laughing, Scarlett moved the ladder down the shelves to the end of its tracks. "You'd get tired of it after a while," she observed.

"No I wouldn't," insisted Ella, "I'd never get tired of this, its too much fun."

Moving the ladder back in the other direction, Scarlett smiled up at her daughter. "Alright, you might not get tired, but I would. Then who'd push you?"

"Uncle Rhett would," answered Ella in a matter of factly tone of voice.

Scarlett's smile started to slip, but she managed to hold on to it. "I'm sure he would Ella."

"If you're tired, I could ask him to push me," Ella said grinning.

Her heart twisted in her chest. They were having fun, things were nice for a change, she didn't want to let her mind dwell on Rhett. "He'd have to be here though darling," she said finally.

"But he is here," replied Ella.

He was there. Ella was right; he was in the store, she could feel it. Deciding to trust both her daughter and her own instincts, she did not turn, but gave a casual, "Hello Rhett," over her shoulder.

"Hello Scarlett," he replied.

Scarlett turned, her heart pounding in her throat. "Rhett."

"Scarlett," he replied, bowing gracefully, before returning her greeting with a smile. It was the insouciant smile he'd worn that day at the barbeque. The same smile that had been on his face when he'd thought she was the one coming down the stairs on that awful Christmas Day she'd observed in the future. A smile that was always meant just for her.

He looked tired, still a little careworn. His black hair was wind tousled, a little longer than how he'd previously worn it. Some of the weight he'd gained after Bonnie's death was gone from his face. It was hard to deduce just how weight he must have lost since he still wore his overcoat but his face had lost that bloated, haggard look. He must be sleeping more and drinking less, she decided.

.

Her deep scrutiny must have amused him because the small smile turned into a grin. Warmth spread through her. When Rhett smiled, he still exuded the essence of a wild-hearted buccaneer who'd...thoughts about just what he might do embarrassed her more than a little.

"Did you have a good Christmas," she blurted out, flushing lightly at how loud her voice sounded in the quiet of the store.

Raising a brow, he allowed his eyes to wander up and down her figure until her flush grew into a full blush "Frankly, no. I did not have a good Christmas. I would not even go so far as to call it mediocre. My mother was kind enough to host me, but it was an awful day, one I hope never to repeat."

There was real sympathy in her emerald eyes. She'd seen him on Christmas Day. He was trying to be strong, playing off the misery he'd felt with a few glib comments. "I'm sorry to hear that," she said softly, her voice was warm and he took a step forward.

"Not half as sorry as I am to have lived it."

They exchanged a long look. They needed to talk but not in front of two impressionable children. "Wade," Scarlett asked, "would you mind going outside and asking Micah to take you and your sister home in the carriage?"

Wade gave his stepfather a stern look. "Do you want me to send it back for you?" There was a quiet, but firm emphasis placed on the word "you."

"Yes please." Wade glanced at Rhett, distrust still in his normally warm brown eyes. "Go on Wade," she said gently, "I promise, I'll be along in a little while."

Plucking Ella off the ladder, she kissed her daughter and then leaning over, she whispered to her son, "If I could handle a passel of Yankees, don't you think I can handle plain ol' Rhett." A giggle slipped from Wade's lips and feeling bold, he planted a quick kiss on her cheek. Once the children were in the carriage and one their way, Scarlett went back into the store, locking the door behind her.

"A remarkable change," commented Rhett lightly. "The children don't seem afraid of you anymore."

"Why should they be afraid of me, I'm their mother," replied Scarlett, wincing a little.

"Which, as I recall, was why they were afraid of you in the first place."

"I don't think they were afraid of me because I was their mother, I imagine they were afraid of me because I acted like a witch." She curled her fingers a little into a claw shape. "Although, I've always been lacking when it comes to the warts and cackling laugh."

"Something to work on."

"I think not. I've retired my wicked ways, broomstick and all."

"Wonders never cease."

She shrugged. Untying the apron around her waist, she occupied herself with hanging it up to give herself a moment to get her emotions under control. She wanted to throw herself into his arms, but maybe he wasn't ready for an outpouring of emotion yet. "Are you back for a visit, to keep down the gossip?" Scarlett asked nonchalantly.

His voice spoke softly in her ear. "No."

He had crossed the store on those damned feet of his. Only Rhett could walk so quickly and lightly. It made no sense; he was a large, physically imposing man. Surely, he should make some noise. A cat! That's what he reminded her of. But, did that make her the mouse?

"How do you do that," she asked, taking a small step back. A few cans shifted on the shelves behind her. She stuck her hands out to catch them, missing one. It hit the floor with a thud causing her to nearly jump out of her skin.

"How do I do what?" Rhett asked, as he bent to retrieve the can she'd missed.

"I've missed you," Scarlett said, fearful that if she didn't admit it, she might turn coward.

"I've missed you too," he said, putting the can down. Removing the cans from her arms, he piled them on the counter.

"Have you really?" Scarlett teased.

"Yes."

"What exactly did you miss," she asked, her voice taking on a flirtatious note.

His eyes burned with an inner fire "I've missed the way you chew your pencil when you're working on the ledgers but then complain that every pencil in your desk has teeth marks. Do you know that you do that?" She shook her head, beginning to smile. "I miss all the hundreds of silly, everyday things you do that I didn't even realize I would miss." He laughed, "God help me, look what you've reduced me to, a character out of an Bronte novel. At this rate, I'll be writing poems before I know it."

The thought of Rhett writing poems reduced her to giggles. "I'd like to read a poem written by you," she said with a grin.

"Don't hold your breath," he replied. When she only smiled, he admitted to her what he'd come to miss most of all over the years. "I've missed seeing you smile," he said, "not that I've made you smile often enough. Your lack of smiles, I take responsibility for that. I promised you that marriage would be fun..."

"Are you home for good," she cut in, needing to know.

Reaching out, he pinched her chin affectionately. "Always to the point, aren't you my dear? I had worked out an entire statement of my intentions during my train ride, it seems a shame to let it go to waste."

"Rhett..." Scarlett warned with a smile.

"I want to come home, if you'll have me."

"If I'll have you?" Scarlett asked, incredulously, "I don't want anyone but you."

Then, she was in his arms, laughing and crying at the same time. Later, neither she nor Rhett could not say for certain who made the first move. Perhaps it was better that way. If neither of them could say who bent first, then neither of them was at a disadvantage.

At last, the tears stopped and she was able to catch her breath "You missed Christmas day," she told him, leaning her head against his chest.

Resting his chin on the top of her head. "I know. I thought I could stay from you. I thought that if I stayed away long enough, I could eventually not need you anymore."

"You missed me though," she declared smugly, knowing it was true.

He laughed, hearing the note of pleasure in her voice. "I did. I missed you very much. You were all I thought about. No matter how hard I tried to push you from my mind, you were there. You, my darling, are a nearly impossible habit to break."

Curiosity flickered in her eyes. "Did you ever open my present?" It was important for her to know. After the way he'd casually dismissed it, had curiosity had gotten the better of him? She needed to know that he'd seen the gift she'd selected with such care.

"I did," he replied, his expression turning serious.

Yes, her heart sang triumphantly, he'd opened it after all. He came to her knowing that she wanted him. That she'd invited him to come back and resume his life with her.

"Most presents are usually pretty baubles or dust catchers, usually nothing anyone needs can be found in a box under a Christmas tree, don't you agree?" Her green eyes glinted wickedly remembering Rhett's comments when his mother had urged him to open his gift.

"Before I opened this particular present," he withdrew the small box from his coat pocket, "I would have been inclined to agree." He laid the box on the counter.

"When did you open it?"

"Yesterday." He pressed his fingertips to her lips. "Before you ask, I opened it, gave it a moments consideration, and then I told mother I was leaving. And here I am."

"A moments consideration? I thought it would be fairly obvious what it meant."

"When I stopped to consider how your mind works, it was obvious. Initially I was thinking it was something subtle, something that held a deeper meaning. Then I realized you are as subtle as a yardarm to the back of the head."

Her hands rested on her hips. "Why would you think I was being subtle? That's your problem Rhett Butler, you read too much into things."

His dark eyes twinkled merrily. "I thought you were being romantic, that it was the key to your heart."

She burst out laughing. "That's ridiculous, utterly and completely awful. Have you been reading romance novels?"

He caught her hand and placing it over his heart, he held it there. "I thought it might be a poetic, grand gesture."

She shook her head, snickering. "You're insane."

"Forgive me if it took me two guesses."

Playfully, she pulled her hand from his, pushing him away. "What else could a key to our front door mean other than I wanted you to come home and use it?"

"That was the conclusion I finally came to."

They shared a quiet moment, each at peace with the other. Once again, Scarlett rested her head against his chest, the continuous staccato of his heart comforting her. She could feel his hand running up and down her back in smooth, sweeping strokes.

"Are you home for good," she asked finally.

Tipping her chin up, he grinned. "Didn't you just ask me that?"

"I did. And I am going to ask you probably a hundred more times."

"Mrs. Butler...Scarlett," he lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her palm with gentleness that seemed strangely amiss in such a powerfully built man. "Will you allow me to be informal? You will won't you, since we are such old friends?" He looked at her and his eyes stopped the laughter that had threatened to bubble from her lips. They were warm, full of tenderness; they were the eyes of a man in love. And he was in love, with her.

She was reminded of Melly's words to her, the last she would ever hear her speak, 'Be kind to Captain Butler, he loves you so.' She had been right, had known for years and years, perhaps even before Rhett himself had known. Certainly, she'd known long before Scarlett. Oh Melly, she thought, you were right. He does love me.

"I'm so glad you're here," she whispered, as involuntary tears began to stream down her cheeks. "I'm so glad you're home."

"So am I." He wiped the tears from her cheek with the ball of his thumb. "Don't cry, please sweetheart." Teasing her reminded her, "I didn't send you a present for Christmas, that's a serious offense."

The tears subsided. "It is, but I have a way you could make it up to me."

"A new fur, diamonds, what would you like?"

"This," she said, standing on tiptoe, she wrapped her arms around his neck. Her lips found his and she heard him say her name, once, softly, before he returned the kiss. His hands moved up her back, trying to hold her closer if it were at all possible Her hands gripped the lapels of his overcoat as the world swam out of focus. His mouth moved from her lips to her jaw, and then before she could speak, he was kissing her again until all she could do was give herself over the rush of emotion flowing though her.

His hands were in her hair; his fingers drawing the pins from her carefully pilled and coiled hair. When she heard them fall to the floor, she protested, drawing a gentle chuckle of laughter from him. He reminded her that they were at the store, surely, she stocked hairpins?

"The store," she murmured before pushing him away and looking toward the plate glass window she blushed furiously.

"What about it," he asked, pulling her toward him.

She nudged him, ducking her head when he tried to kiss her. "Great balls of fire, anyone could have seen us just now."

"Yes, imagine the scandal." He pursed his lips, and rolling his eyes to heaven, she suddenly saw India Wilkes before her. A mustached, tanned India, but the facial expression was perfect all the same. "Mrs. Meade, you'll never guess what I saw while downtown. That rapscallion Captain Butler was kissing a woman and you'll never guess who that woman was, it was," he paused dramatically, "his wife."

She chuckled, willing to acknowledge that when it came to them, a semi public display of affection was certainly not the most inflammatory thing they'd done. "I suppose everyone is going to gossip anyway when they realize you're home for good."

"That they will." Wrapping his arms around her slim waist, he brushed her hair away from her face. "But, I imagine they've been talking all along. How bad has it been, really," he asked.

"Bad," she answered honestly.

"I'm sorry I left you here to face it all on your own."

"It doesn't matter, not now."

"Who are you," he asked "and what have you done with my wife?"

"She's still here," Scarlett said with a mischievous smile, "but I think that you are in store for a few surprises."

"My dear, I don't doubt that."

* * *

It was hard to believe that Christmas was in less than two weeks. Running through the list before her, Scarlett noted that she still hadn't sent anything to the Aunts in Charleston. It was a shame that a generous bank draft, which her aunts would secretly welcome, would be seen as somewhat crude. Maybe gloves or some of their favorite sweets? Christmas shopping, Scarlett noted, was a great deal more difficult when you actually cared if the recipient of a gift really liked it.

Glancing up under lowered lids, she covertly watched as Mammy supervised four maids who were taking down the heavy, blood red drapes. She'd offered the drapes from her office to Mammy's church to use for Altar cloths or choir robes, really, whatever they liked. Where once she'd thought them wonderful, now she found them oppressive and grim. In the last year since Rhett's return, Scarlett valiantly tried to redecorate their home, but as time passed the impossibility of the project had left her dejected.

The house was a depressing, overdone, nightmare of a dwelling. It had taken some time, but she saw it clearly now. No amount of paint or new window dressings would banish the overwhelming feeling of being sealed alive in a vault. So, that left her with one solution with several sub-solutions. After the holidays ended, she wanted to either convince Rhett to tear the house down and build something new, or better yet, sell it to the first sucker who'd be willing to buy it.

"Miz Sca'let, dis hea is mitey genris of ya," beamed Mammy, knowing her lamb was watching them.

"I'm just glad someone will be able to put them to good use," said Scarlett, not bothering to pretend she wasn't watching.

"We dun Miz Sca'let, you wan' a tray boug't in?" Mammy asked. She was proud of her lamb. The way she'd changed was a near miracle. She was not Ellen O'Hara come again. There was too much of a spark in her eyes and too much laughter in her voice to be a copy of her mother. In actuality, Scarlett reminded her of a melding of the best qualities of Solange Robillard and Ellen O'Hara combined with that spark that was purely Scarlett.

Before she could decide on the tray, Rhett interrupted them. "Scarlett, do you have a minute," he asked, coming in before she could reply.

"For you," she said flirtatiously, "I have a lifetime." She waited to see how he would respond, but there was no sign that he'd noticed. He was preoccupied, clutching a small parcel and an envelope. Her tone became serious. "Mammy, don't bother about the tray, would you pull the door closed behind you please." When the door closed, she went to him, resting a hand on his arm, she asked, "What is it?"

"I've gotten a letter from Charleston."

"From who?" Seeing the distant look on his face, she clutched his arm tighter, "Not your mother..."

"No, she's fine. I have a letter from her as well."

"Then who sent you the letter and the package?"

"My father, it would seem." His lips twisted into a smirk. "He didn't speak to me after he banished me from his home, but yet, he managed to send me a letter from beyond the grave." He moved away from her, tossing the box on her desk. "And a gift of some sort." He gave a short bark of laughter. "A gift and it's not even my birthday." He dropped into on of the chairs in front of her desk. "I suppose it's an early Christmas gift."

"Your dead father wrote you a letter?" Mentally, she slapped herself. It came out sounding very flippant, but he didn't seem to notice.

"To be precise and accurate, I don't think he was dead when he wrote it," he smiled at her, "it's alright, I'm a little surprised myself."

"Where was this letter, has your mother had it since he died?"

"No. My parents stayed with friends of the family, the Brewtons, after they lost the townhouse. Scarlett, sit down, if you keep pacing we'll have to replace the carpets in here, again." Once she settled in behind his desk, he continued. "Sally Brewton's nephews were playing hide and go seek. One of them found this letter shoved into a cubby hole under a window seat."

"Well, don't keep me in suspense. What does it say?"

He shrugged elegantly. "I have no idea, I haven't opened it yet."

She exploded. "You just got a letter that's been hidden away for years and you haven't opened it yet!"

He smirked. "If you'd like, I haven't wrapped your Christmas gifts yet, would you rather I didn't? Save you the suspense?"

"Ha, ha," she wadded up a ball of paper and threw it at him.

Looking wounded, he asked, "What was that for?"

"It was for just because," she replied, looking prim and proper. Then her eyes sparkled devilishly, "The next one will be if you don't open it before I expire of curiosity."

"If you're dead, how you launch another projectile?"

"Never you mind, I'd find a way."

"I don't doubt that you would," tenting his fingers, he looked at her, real emotion straying into his expression. "To tell you the truth, the temptation to take a match to it is nearly overwhelming my own curiosity."

Scarlett smiled. "Would you like me to open it?"

"No."

"Would you like me to get you a match," she asked wryly.

Laughing, Rhett shook his head. "It is silly, isn't it? At my age, I still want to avoid one final dressing down from my father. I thought I left caring about what he thought behind me when I left his house. But it's hard to know that the man who was my father regarded me as an asp in Eden."

"In the last six months Rhett I've learned one man's silly can be another man's salvation." Smiling gently, she reached across the desk, squeezing his hand. "Open your letter, once you read it then its out in the open."

Silently he handed her the letter. She did not tease him further. Withdrawing a letter opener from the stand on her desk, she made a neat slit along the top of the envelope. Taking out two folded sheets, she looked at Rhett.

"Two pages, father must have had slightly more to say than you're a disappointment Rhett."

She picked up the top sheet. "This first page isn't a letter Rhett, it's just a list of names and dates and places."

He held out his hand. Skimming the page, his jaw clenched briefly. Only when he turned the page over did his expression soften.

"Who are those people Rhett?"

"Butlers. My antecedents." He looked up at her. "I told you that when the old man banished me from Charleston, he blotted my name from the family bible." He brushed a fingertip over a section of the page. "He recopied the page, front and back. He put me back Scarlett." His dark face was a canvas on which a thousand emotions were painted. "He blotted me out as one of them, as a Butler, then for some reason he put me back.

"Read the letter," she urged again, "maybe it's not what you think."

"I can't. You read it to me."

Clearing her throat, she began.

My son,

It seems that we will not see one another again on this side of the grave. Your mother has promised to send for you, but I know in my heart, take that smirk off your face young man; I do have a heart even if I never showed it to the world.

A choking laugh came from Rhett. Meeting her curious gaze, he laughed softly. "When I was small I thought my father had eyes in the back of his head."

"Rhett..."

"Keep reading, please."

You were born just after midnight. I remember standing on the piazza of the house on South Broad Street, waiting for you to make your entrance. You were late, my boy, even for your own birth. That makes me smile now, as does remembering the moment your dah, Elsie, came out and told me that I had a son. When I held you in my arms and you looked up at me, I knew I had never before nor would I ever again feel such a wave of compete and pure love

I thought you were the most perfect baby in the world, even if I didn't say so. Your mother thought that I was pleased only because she'd given me a boy. I didn't care that you were a boy. I cared that you were my child. My little boy. I loved you then just as I do now.

I wanted so much for you. I wanted too much for you, I see that now. I wanted to give you everything but each time you rejected a convention, every time you flaunted the rules of society; I took it as a personal affront. These conventions, these rules, they made up the scope of my life. I was worried that you would be unable to be a part of that world if you continued on the road you seemed determined to travel. I spent so much time worrying about the man you'd become that I neglected the boy you were.

When I drove you from my house, when I crossed your name from the family bible, when I prevented your mother and sister from seeing you; I did so because I was angry with you. I was angry because you rejected everything I had to offer you. The infant I'd held that night in my arms, I allowed my anger to blot him out. I was angry with you Rhett, but I never hated you.

I'm dying Rhett. Every breath, every day, it all becomes harder. But, because I am dying, I can at last face the truth. I was a fool. I broke the hearts of those I claimed to love best because of my expectations. I turned my back on my own son. I was proud and unwavering in my beliefs. I told myself that you were the villain in this. I told myself that you were the only one at fault. The fault was mine. If I hadn't pushed so hard, you wouldn't have pulled away from me the way you did. I should have known how to forgive you, to make you know that no matter what you do, you are my son and ...

"And what," he asked expectantly.

"He didn't finish the thought, he moved on to a new paragraph."

"What does it say?"

What can I give you Rhett? A father should leave his son something, but I have nothing left. The Landing, I know how you loved it. I loved it too. At least that was something we shared. I haven't seen it in two years. For all I know, all that's left is a blackened shell and some overgrown rice fields. The house on South Broad went for taxes. I am lying in a bed in someone else's house. I am about to die. Knowing that once I am gone, you will be able to help your mother and sister comforts me.

Still, there has to be something. You must have something from me; something from a father to his son. I racked my brains and then it came to me. I could give you back your place as a Butler. Some ink and anger could not erase you. It was a gesture born of anger and wounded pride.

I thought it might comfort you to look at this page and see that I want those who come after to know that Stephen Michael Butler had a first born son named Rhett. You will always be my son, even if you wish that wasn't so.

Neither of us wanted to be the one to bend. In the end, we each lost a chance. I wish I could say all of this to your face, but then I imagine I wouldn't have been able to. Easier to confess my wrongs to a sheet of paper than to my now grown son.

If you are the man I think you are, you'll understand how hard it is to admit you made mistakes. I suddenly find I can leave you one last thing. Advice. If you love someone Rhett, be willing to meet halfway before the chance to meet them at all disappears.

I love you, never doubt that,

Papa

"Rhett," she asked cautiously, "are you alright?"

His face was leached of color but something seemingly very near rage flickered in his eyes. "Of course I am alright, why shouldn't I be," he snapped.

She was perfectly still, watching him struggling with the revelations in his father's last letter. "He loved you Rhett, at least you know that now for certain."

"So he says." He shrugged. "I'll give him this, he was right on one count. I imagine that it was far easier to write a deathbed letter than it would have been to face me."

"Did your mother ask you to come and see him?"

"She did." He rubbed his temple brusquely, in what looked like an attempt to purge his father's last words from his brain. "I got the message the week after he died. I had other matters to attend to. I doubt I would have gone even if I'd gotten the message in time."

Scarlett's eyes fell on the box. "Are you going to open the package?"

Glancing at the box, his lips twisted into a smirk. "In for a penny, in for a pound. Do the honors my dear."

Her green eyes, still misty with tears from the contents of the letter, regarded him sympathetically. Her heart went out to him; the grief he felt was obviously intense. "Maybe you should be the one to open it."

"Why not, he muttered, taking the letter opener from Scarlett, "what else could he have sent me I wonder?"

Leaning forward, Scarlett couldn't see what was in the box. She could see the profound effect its contents had on Rhett. "What is it, what's in the box?"

He tilted the box to revel a set of cuff link, each set with a single, flawless ruby. When he moved the box slightly, the stones caught the light of the late afternoon sun streaming through the window behind her, sending brilliant flashes of light dancing across her dress. Staring into the heart of the stones, she thought she saw something more than her own reflection, but the moment passed in an instant. "They're magnificent, they were your father's?"

"They were my father's," he said, echoing her question and answering it in the affirmative. "And they were my mother's grandfather's and her father's. Grandfather Chevalier In Charleston, there is a tradition; the most recent bride leads the Grand March at Saint Cecelia's. She does so in her wedding dress. My grandfather gave his new son in law, my father, the cufflinks his own father had given him when he himself was married Father promised me that when I attended my first Saint Cecelia's ball as a married man, he'd give them to me."

She came around to his side of the desk. Resting her hands on his shoulders, she squeezed lightly. "How old were you when he promised you these?"

Lightly rubbing the pad of his thumb over one cufflink, he reached up with his other hand laying his hand over hers, he returned the squeeze. "Seven. Maybe eight."

"I'll bet you were a wonderfully mischievous little boy. And very handsome."

Kissing the back of her hand, he chuckled a little at her observation. "My dah wouldn't have agreed. She said I was the devil's own son." Looking down at the cufflinks, he exhaled slowly, his voice gaining a distant quality. "I can remember sitting on the bed in my father's room watching him prepare for Saint Cecelia's. He allowed me to fasten his cuff links and when I told him how I thought they looked like berries, he pinched my nose then pretended to warn me against eating them. I knew he was teasing me of course and then, he promised them to me. I think I'd forgotten that, until just a minute ago."

"It sounds as if you were close when you were little, did you miss him, after you left home?"

"I-sometimes. Now and again. I didn't often think about Charleston or anyone in it. Not if I could consciously help it. But, when I came back from California, I think I would have liked to been able to go and see him. To tell him about all the things I saw on my way out west. He used to read me stories about explorers and...he was right; neither of us was willing to bend." Then his shoulders tensed, under her hand. "Damn it!" Rhett exclaimed, coming to his feet. She watched as he moved away from her. He stopped in front of the windows, now devoid of their heavy velvet drapes.

"Darling, I wish I knew what to say."

"What is there to say? Rhett, your father was a pompous jackass and you were a reckless hell raiser who broke your father's heart? I thought he hated me, all these years I assumed he crossed me out of the family bible and never spared me another thought." His voice broke and she could hear the agony in his words. He turned to face her and his expression brought tears to his eyes. "He died Scarlett, thinking that I refused to bend, that I wouldn't come even when he dying."

"You didn't know," she pointed out rationally. "If you had gotten his letter, or heard from your mother in time, then you would have been able to decide. You lost the chance to say goodbye to your father and that hurts. It does. I know what that feels like to lose that chance; I lost that chance. Twice."

"I know you did. Did you feel cheated, not being able to say a proper good bye?"

"I don't know. When Pa died, I was expecting Ella. I was afraid the Yankees were going to take the mills and the store because of all the bother with Tony Fontaine. It seemed like the world was crashing down around me. I remember knowing that in June I'd have to hide in Pitty's house because of the baby so I thought, that's when I'll go home. I could spend the rest of my time at Tara, at peace. So, I kept putting off going home, even for a visit, until June. But then June came and Pa died. I wish I had left a month earlier, had that little time with him."

"In his letter, when he describes what he felt the first time he held me? Do you know what that could be, a verbatim description of what I felt the first time I held Bonnie." His jaw tightened, "If he felt half as much for me as I felt for her, how did it come to end like this?"

"There's no way to answer that," her eyes fell on the cufflinks, glittering benignly in their cotton fluff, then the words came out of her mouth before she could consider their origins, "Rhett, sometimes we are incapable of seeing the damage we inflict until it's too late to undo it."

His powerful muscles rippled beneath his coat as he turned to face her. He seemed to fill the whole room with his presence. "What did you just say?"

She swallowed past the lump in her throat. The expression she had just used, the Ghost who'd conducted her through Christmas Present, those were his words. He'd said them to her and when she declared she could not understand it's meaning, he'd told her it was not a message for her. "It's not a message for you my dear," he'd told her before kissing her forehead. His message, it would seem, was meant for her husband.

Her husband and the ghost, only now did she finally make the connection. The ghost who'd been so familiar to her, his familiarity did not come from previous association. It was a familiarity born from a family connection. He was Rhett's father, Stephen. "I said, sometime we are incapable of seeing the damage we inflict until it's too late to undo it."

"Why would you say that?"

"It seemed appropriate to the current conversation," she offered reluctantly.

"In these circumstances, more appropriate than you could know." Looking at her with a strange combination of suspicion and determination in his eyes, he said, "That turn of phrase you just used, about the damage we inflict, where did you hear it?"

"I---someone must have said it to me once."

"My mother, when she was here this summer? Maybe she used it in conversation?"

"No."

"I sure as hell know I've never used it. That was a favorite expression of my father's. One specific to him. It wasn't a quotation, it was original to my father."

Sitting on the sofa, Scarlett spoke softly, asking him to come and join her. When he reluctantly did so, she turned her body sideways so she could look him in the eye. "I need to tell you something, something that may sound fantastic. Completely unbelievable. But if you believe me, you'll see it's some beautiful. Something miraculous."

Sucking in a breath, feeling as if she'd just punched him in the gut; he rested a hand on her knee. "You're pregnant?"

She shook her head; her tear dropped shaped pearl earrings dancing. "No. No, I'm not pregnant." Her eyes were dark now, the same shade as emeralds. "I don't think I ever will be again. It's been nearly a year now, and nothing. Before, it always happened in such a short span of time. If it hasn't by now, I've started to doubt it ever will. I'm sorry Rhett."

"It doesn't matter." Touching her face, he leaned forward, kissing her lips softly. "Tell me, where did you hear what you said about damage, does it relate to what you just wanted to tell me?"

"It does." And so, she began her tale, recounting to him the fantastic events of the previous Christmas Eve. She tried to tell it in the most straightforward manner possible, but at times, she felt the whole thing sounded practiced, as if she'd previously rehearsed telling the story.

Several times, amusement flickered in his eyes and she caught him suppressing a smile. He didn't believe her; she could see it in his face. Just as she finished telling him about going into her old bedroom while clutching a poker, his self-control broke. He began to chuckle, then unable, to maintain his composure, he began to laugh.

"Go on and laugh," she invited scathingly, "but at least tell me this, what happened to the other ruby, the one set in a stick pin. It was one of the most beautiful pieces I've ever seen."

He was looked at her, the laughter dying on his lips. The supernatural was not something he'd given very much consideration to, not since he'd grown past of age of checking beneath the bed for ghouls. And Scarlett was one of the most unimaginative women he'd ever met. She believed in heaven and hell, but in the possibility that the dead could come back to interact with the living?

"Scarlett..."

"It was your father. He looked like you, except his hair was a little longer, to his collar nearly. He took me to Charleston Rhett. I saw you on Christmas day. You told your mother you'd never go back to Atlanta. You told her that you weren't going to open my present because you didn't need it and that you wouldn't write to me because you didn't have anything to say."

"Mother told you that when she came."

"She didn't. I was there."

"You couldn't have been, it's not possible."

"You were sitting in a chair in front of the fire. You looked awful, so awful that I tried to touch you. I spoke to you, even though the ghost said you wouldn't hear me---"

"You spoke to me?" He went very still, his dark eyes searching hers, looking for the slightest indication that she was teasing. "What did you say?"

"I said that I loved you with all my heart, and I asked you to come back to me. You told your mother that I wouldn't forgive you for leaving me."

"With your whole heart."

"What?"

"Not with all your heart, you whispered that you loved me with your whole heart."

Her heart seemed to shudder, skipping a beat. "Yes, that's what I said."

"Mother and I, we were arguing about my father, and then I felt something."

She leaned forward eagerly, "What did you feel."

There was acceptance in his eyes and she knew, no matter how outrageous the rest of her story was, he would believe her. "What did you feel Rhett?" Scarlett asked again.

"I felt you."

* * *

"So, I just want to be clear," Rhett said, forty-five minutes later, "in the course of one evening you saw my late father, both your late husbands..."

"And my grandmother Robillard."

"You interrupted, I was just getting to her."

She rested her palm on his chest, her brilliant green eyes dancing, "You believe me."

"Despite the fact that it all seems too fantastic for words, yes, I believe you. How could I not, the things you described, there's no other way you could know the things you've told me about." He laughed, "Do you know, I've wondered what wrought such a huge change in you. I thought perhaps it was a combination of my leaving and losing Mrs. Wilkes. But I'll admit it, divine intervention complete with spirits, that makes a hell of a lot more sense."

"I could have changed on my own," she declared with a raised brow.

"Not according to your story. Were it not for the spirits you would have died alone in this house and I would have spent the rest of my life mourning you. Did the spirits happen to mention whether or not I was still living with my mother?" There was laughter in his voice, "I'd hate like hell to think that I would spend the rest of my life living with at home with my mother."

"Surprisingly, your living arrangements never came up in the course of conversation."

"But I was still living in Charleston?"

"Yes, that's what you told Ella. At least, you told her that you went back to Charleston after..." Her eyes sparkled and she laughed softly.

"After I came to see you at the store," he said, considering her story.

"If you'd come to see me and found me berating George Ruddy or yelling at Richard, would you still have come in?"

"I don't know. The key to the house brought me to Atlanta, but what brought me into the store was the way you were playing with Ella. I saw her face while you pushed the ladder down the wall, she was happy to be with you. And then I saw Wade; he looked happy to be at the store. It was watching with them, you were all happy and I wanted that. I wanted to be a part of that happiness."

"And here you are."

"Here I am," he said, drawing her close, "and here I will stay." He kissed her slowly, exploring her as if it were the first time. The feel of her lips against his, the way she molded herself against him threading her fingers through his hair; he knew that this time, he was promising her forever.

THE END

**So, that's my story. Yeah, the end was a total cheese fest. I felt dirty, but I have friends, they made demands, they put up with a lot of crap so I owed them.**

**You know, there's something awful in that I've just posted about 115 pages in a month and half and yet I've been working on FTE for almost three...four years? It has to be at least a year for This year's love.**

**People, I am a slacker. Wait a minute, FTE is like 700 pages, I take that back, I just need way more free time to write lol. Damn real life, always in my way.**

**That being said, I'm opening this one to a vote. I have some done for TYL, I have some done for the next FTE chapter. Which would you like to see updated next? The plus with TYL is it will be the last chapter.**

**Let me know.**

**Corn**


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